Bill Maher and the Attack of the Trump Mind Virus

Like many victims before him, Maher was an ideal mark for Trump's con

Bill Maher, comedian and host of the popular political commentary and debate show Real Time on Max, recently sat down to a private dinner with Donald Trump. And instead of seeing through this as a lame attempt by Trump to coddle up to a prominent media figure media for more gentle coverage—as every person with a brain could see was happening— Maher ate it up and promoted the dinner as a way to move forward and resolve our nation’s growing divisions.

He commented on this dinner in his opening monologue on his April 11 show. And it went as predictably as you would expect. Bewilderment at the difference between the man in person vs the public figure, platitudes of national healing, and a “fuck your feelings” attitude to anyone that might criticize him for doing this.

He started the commentary with self-deprecation while insulting those that aggrandized the event:

And let me first say that to all the people who treated this like it was some kind of summit meeting, you are ridiculous. Like I was going to sign a treaty or something. I have no power. I'm a … comedian and he's the most powerful leader in the world. I'm not the leader of anything,

Then, after declaring that anyone who thought of this dinner as a kind of “summit” was an idiot, he proceeded to use language that suggested that he thought of this dinner as, well, a kind of summit:

There’s gotta be something better than hurling insults from 3000 miles away.

There’s got to be a better way of running this country than hating each other every minute.

If this was just a dinner between a lowly simpleton comedian and the president, there wouldn’t be much consideration about “running the country”.

By saying these things, Maher confronts a main fallacy in dealing with Trump, or any narcissistic personality: that the person doing the abuse is not responsible for their behavior and that the general relationship is what needs worked on, not the abuser themselves.

The reality is that Trump is the main spark, if not the instigator of, the level of hate and disparagement we now have in our public discourse. He would have to tone down the rhetoric first for anyone to trust that progress to a better world was on the horizon.

But no, even in this specific instance of a dinner with Bill Maher, Trump couldn’t tamp down on his own hate and insults. As Bill Maher noted:

The guy I met is not the person who the night before the dinner shit-tweeted a bunch of nasty crap about how he thought this dinner was a bad idea and what a deranged (expletive) I was. I read it and thought, oh, what a lovely way to welcome someone to your house.

So, one would have to ask, why the fuck did Bill Maher go through with this in the first place?

If Maher was really interested in cooling the discourse, it would have been a much stronger statement to cancel the dinner after seeing this tweet, and doing a monologue about how he couldn’t go through with the dinner after all after such an insulting and denigrating public post about the event and him personally.

Like, who the hell goes to a dinner with a person that just told them what an asshole they are? Would you want to go into that person’s house and break bread with them?

At this point, if Maher still goes through with the dinner, he’s trying to placate someone, or just doing it for his own jollies. The idea that something real and good will come out of it is laughable.

Maher obviously did go through with it, and basically just poured more gasoline on the normalization fire. Here’s some excerpts from the monologue, very small ones mostly so you note the carefully banal wording from which normalization springs:

….[we should] meet up in person. Maybe it will be different. Spoiler Alert: It was.

When I got there, that guy wasn’t living there.

….with good humor

….[I’m] report[ing] exactly what happened

….to his credit

….which I appreciated

Does Trump want respect? Of course, who doesn’t?

….he laughs. [I’ve] Never seen him laugh in public. But he does…including at himself. And it’s not fake.

He’s much more self-aware than he lets on in public

Maher marveled at how easy it was for him to speak, and compared Trump favorably to other less insane, non-fascist people:

Bob—Kid Rock—told me the night before, he said ‘if you want to get a word in edge-wise you’re gonna have to cut him off, he’ll just go on….’—not at all. I’ve had so many conversations with prominent people who are much less connected. People who don’t look you in the eye. People who don’t really listen because they just want to get to their next thing, people whose response to things you say just doesn't track. Like, what? None of that with him. And he mostly steered the conversations: ‘So what do you think about this?’ I know. Your mind is blown. So is mine.

He shared a story about Trump’s thoughts—or lack thereof—on dogs at the White House:

I said to him at one point, ‘Mr. President, you know, the dog. That's unusual in the White House.’ He said, ‘Well, a lot of the presidents, they had a dog for political reasons.’ I said, ‘No, people love dogs! That's what that is.’ (Trump said) ‘Oh yeah, OK, that true.’

I mean, in this context, nothing good comes of this quote. If this was just a whimsical story about a friend of yours that kind of a cute dipshit, okay, that’s sort of cool and funny. But this is the president of the United States. This shows he’s either a vapid idiot or a con man playing to your weaknesses. Or both (this is the most likely case).

Regarding the 2020 election:

At one point we were walking through his amazing — it is an amazing tour of the whole house. And I don't remember exactly what we were talking about but it must have been something with the 2020 election because I know he used the word ‘lost’, and I distinctly remember saying, ‘Wow, I never thought I'd hear you say that.’ He didn't get mad.

Wow. America’s future is bright. We must be on the way back to civility and harmony, now that Trump doesn’t get mad at a private meeting when it’s noted that he said he “lost” the 2020 election.

Probably the most pathetic quote from the monologue is the following:

Look, I get it, it doesn’t matter who he is in a private dinner with a comedian—it matters who he is on the world’s stage. I’m just taking it as a positive that this person exists. Because everything I’ve ever not liked about him was— I swear to God [with teenager-y tone complete with immense eyeroll]—absent, at least on this night with this guy.”

Did Maher expect Trump to deport him that night? Or maybe to rile up an angry mob to hang Maher? These are things I thought Maher didn’t like about Trump. They were apparently absent from that night, so his statement isn’t quite true. Or it’s a bit too hyperbolic for comfort given the state of American at this moment in history.

Then he sprung this zinger:

I'm just reporting exactly what I saw over two and a half hours. I went into the mine, and that's what's down there. A crazy person doesn't live in the White House. A person who plays a crazy person on TV a lot lives there, which I know is (expletive) up. It's just not as (expletive) up as I thought it was.

I don’t know, to me the idea that he’s not so crazy in private and that his insanity is purely a construct for public consumption is even more fucked up than if he was just plain crazy. The nature of such premeditation resulting in successfully playing on people’s prejudices, fears, and hate suggests another level of insanity and sociopathy that’s absolutely chilling.

And then, probably the whole reason Trump set up this dinner in the first place:

I never felt I had to walk on eggshells around him, and honestly? I voted for Clinton and Obama but I would never feel comfortable talking to them the way I was able to talk with Donald Trump. That's just how it went down. Make of it what you will. Me? I feel it's emblematic of why the Democrats are so unpopular these days.

For the cost of a dinner and some time with Maher, Trump got the public bashing and demoralization of Democrats he wanted from a prominent liberal. And Maher, the patsy, played it off as some high-minded political analysis, not a very clippable segment that MAGA influencers will now feed their cultist followers.

To conclude, Maher said:

that's my report. You can hate me for it, but I'm not a liar. Trump was gracious and measured, and why he isn't that in other settings, I don't know. And I can't answer, and it's not my place to answer. I'm just telling you what I saw, and I wasn't high.

Well, we can all rest assured that even if your loved ones don’t get their Social Security checks, or are deported to an El Salvador slave camp, we at least know that Trump is “gracious and measured” in a private dinner setting. In those trying times, we can embrace the warm fuzzy feelings that knowledge brings us.

I’m sure that if I had a private dinner with Trump, he would not immediately put me in shackles and ship me off to El Savlador. He would probably come off as a likeable guy. I’m also sure that Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini would come off as likable in the right context. In fact, that is a big reason why all of them were able to achieve such power.

Maher-morphosis

As for Maher, I used to be a big fan. He was one of my favorite comedians and political commentators. But he started losing me after 2022-2023. Through that season’s shows, he weathered the criticism of Joe Biden’s age with a lot of pointed commentary about how it’s actually a virture to be older and experienced, that it means one can impart a lot wisdom onto their decision-making.

But then, starting the next season, with no warning or explanation, he suddenly flip-flopped and started treating Biden’s age as the apocalyptic flaw that was starting to take shape in the media landscape. And he took advantage of the fertile ground that old age offers in the comedy industry. Old age jokes are cheap and easy, and Maher took full advantage, even donning a walker during a tired bit involving a Biden impression.

With this latest evolution towards tolerance of fascist cult of personality, he has become afflicted with what many of our leaders and prominent pundits have suffered from lately: Trump Mind Virus.