Bill Maher on Tuesday finally shared his own definition of a word that seems to have become a right-wing imperative for “anything I don’t like”: wake up.
When asked in an hour-long conversation with CNN’s Jake Tapper to define the term, the comedian and HBO host called it “a collection of non-constructive ideas.” on libertarianism but frequently subverting it.”
“I mean, five years ago, Abraham Lincoln was not a controversial figure in the liberal world. We like him. Now they remove his name from the school and tear down his statues. Really, Lincoln isn’t good enough for you? he say.
The statement is apparently in reference to a two-year-old title in which a San Francisco school board vote to remove the name of the former president from a high school—but then suspended plan.
“Five, 10 years ago, fundamental liberalism was [that] we’re trying to be a color blind society where we don’t see race,” continued Maher, who has Overtime segment start running on Friday night on CNN earlier this month. “Of course we see it, but it doesn’t matter. That’s not what waking up. Waking up is something very different. That is identity. We see it all the time. It is always the most important thing. I don’t think that’s liberalism.”
Maher then gives another example of what he considers the “wake up” view to have gone too far.
“I remember doing that show on HBO – comic relief for the homeless. Then again, among the libertarians, I think, out of compassion: can we get these people off the streets so they can have a shelter?” he say. “And now it’s like, ‘How dare you try to move the homeless. This is where they live.’”
It’s unclear exactly who he attributed the comments to.
Maher continued: “You change the definitions and then you say I am more conservative?”
“I believe what I have always believed,” said Maher, repeat what he said Right-wing podcast host Ben Shapiro last year. “You change these things and then you scream at me for it.”
