Name: Bill Maher on the Hunger for Common Sense
Uploaded: 2022-04-12T18:20:25.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Bill Maher on the Hunger for Common Sense' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-04-12. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Bill Maher on the Hunger for Common Sense' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-04-12. Transcript available.

- The Joe Rogan experience.
- Well, I think that's because we are both seen
as people who are sort of like commonsensical.
And that is what there is a hunger for, I think,
in America more than anything, is common sense.
- Yes.
- Away from the extremes.
I mean, when people say to me, you know,
don't you think you've gotten more conservative?
No, I haven't.
The left has gotten goofier.
- Yes.
- They seem more conservative, maybe,
but like, it's not me who changed.
I feel I'm the same guy.
But five years ago, you know,
we hadn't spent $6 trillion to stay home.
I mean, I understand we had to do something
with the pandemic.
I'm not sure that was, you know,
I remember when a trillion dollars
was too much to spend on anything.
We didn't spend a trillion to bail out the economy in 2008.
So we didn't do that.
Five years ago, no one was talking about abolishing the police.
You know, there was no talk about, you know,
pregnant men, you know.
I mean, there was just, looting was still illegal.
- Right.
You know.
- Isn't that crazy?
- There was just, there's, so like, have I changed?
No, because if someone had said 20 years ago,
I'm not sure looting is a bad thing,
I would have opposed it then.
See, I, so I haven't changed.
But that, I think, is what there is this hunger for,
is this sort of common sense.
I, you know, centrism is such a wishy-washy word.
But that's sort of what it is.
Some people lean a little more to the left,
a little more to the right.
Sometimes it's issue by issue.
But just, you know, I'm always saying to the Democrats,
just don't be the party of no common sense.
And you will be surprised at how much amazing success you will have,
as opposed to what's going to have happen,
which is they're going to get their ass kicked in November.
Well, people like you are very important to people like me,
because you represent what means, what it means to me to be liberal,
what it means to me to be left-wing.
Because you're just a normal person who cares about people's rights,
and wants a certain amount of freedom,
and wants the people to get along and work things out amicably.
Right.
But the polarization in this country has made it so that people like you are
rare.
It's weird.
It's like that's what I used to think of when I thought of the left.
I thought of like professors and, you know, intellectuals,
and these people that would sit down and work through things
with the understanding that free speech is one of the most important aspects
of communication possible.
And communication is everything.
Communication is how we work things out.
Like this idea of not talking to people you disagree with.
Well, guess what, that just galvanizes them.
They just get hardened and they move further and further away,
and we get more and more associated with this idea of left and right,
and good and bad, and one and zero,
and this side does not agree with anything that side says.
That's crazy.
It doesn't make any sense.
And if you're out there doing it, it gives people hope.
And it's not just what you're saying, common sense.
You do have common sense.
But more importantly, you have courage.
Because courage allows you to speak your mind,
whether you're right or wrong.
Courage allows you to take a chance.
And you're seeing the wave of people that are moving in a certain direction.
It doesn't necessarily make sense.
And you're like, hey, what the fuck is going on?
And everybody's like, finally, someone's saying it on TV.
Because maybe someone said it at a cocktail party.
Maybe someone said it at a barbecue.
But they're not fucking saying it on HBO until you say it on HBO.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate that.
It means a lot.
I always say, you know, there's levels of courage.
There's like, yeah.
I mean, I will take that compliment, as long as I can also say.
But there's like, Marines level.
Yeah, you're not a Navy SEAL.
Absolutely.
No, exactly.
You're not even a woman about to give birth.
I'm in the D League.
Yes.
In the D League, I have a lot of courage.
But I'm not playing in the upper league.
Which you have is honesty.
But thank you.
You have honesty.
And people know that.
And that's why your show works.
And that's also, I always feel like, what my bond with the audience is.
Yes.
When I started way back on Politically Incorrect, almost 30 years ago, people
said, you know,
this show will never work because a TV host can never reveal his politics.
I mean, Johnny Carson never did.
Leno didn't.
David Letterman.
David Letterman.
They never said, I'm voting for this guy.
Whereas, I mean, you obviously know who all the late night hosts are for now.
Right.
I mean, it's a completely one-sided thing.
They have to pander to the liberal audience, which just watches them.
It's so reverse of when I started.
It's bonkers.
When you couldn't be political.
And now, you couldn't survive, apparently, in late night television unless you
are political.
Unless the audience knows exactly that you're, and I would put Saturday Night
Live in this, too.
It's, I think, Elon Musk took them to task.
He said, it doesn't seem like a show that's about comedy anymore so much as it
is about declaring some woke doctrine.
Yeah.
And, you know, having people, the people who go to those shows and are in the,
I guess, where they film them and stuff.
My audience was too doctrinated for a while.
We have a much better audience now because we kind of got rid of the groaners,
the people for whom I was always too politically incorrect.
And I was like, I've been doing this forever.
The names of the shows, politically incorrect, real time.
And you still come to this show and groan when I say something too real?
What fucking show did you think you were coming to?
Because they do film The Price is Right in the same studio.
Do you think that the way it's going right now with late night television where
you, everyone has to be political.
Is that what the audience wants or is that what the executives in the studio
wants?
Are they, like, who is, are they one step behind?
Like, what, where, where is the mandate coming from?
Is it the person who's the host who says, you know what I know works in this
town if I want to keep working?
I have to be, like, outwardly left-leaning progressive political.
Look, it's, I think it's coming from both because corporations in America now
are, you know.
They're leaning in.
Or what?
They're leaning into woke.
Hardcore.
They're, they're petrified of some kind of backlash.
Yeah.
I mean, you see with, with Disney now.
I mean, Disney, one of the most gay-friendly companies that we've had in a very
long time, as they should be.
All companies should be gay-friendly.
But Disney sort of, they had gay days.
Yeah.
At Disney, what is it, World, Land?
I don't know.
I'm not at Disney.
I think it was the LA one, right?
You'll never find me in it.
I think it's Land.
Disneyland is the original.
That's right.
That's LA.
Florida.
Right.
You'll never find me sitting in a teacup, Joe.
Okay, so.
I love teacups.
I mean, this is, in my category of things that only children used to do, that
now adults
do.
I mean, if I had a nickel for every time somebody said, you know, I'm going to
Disneyland, and
I'm like, with your kids?
No, we're just going.
Yeah.
But, you know, there is that.
There is corporations, I think, yes, are always going to want to.
And look, I'm glad they are a progressive thinking.
Of course, like with everything on the left these days, they just take it too
far.
But I think it's coming from the audience more.
Because the audience who goes to a taping of Saturday Night Live or a show like
that, they're
youngish.
And, you know, they believe what they believe.
A lot of the things I also believe.
But it's sort of an unexamined, like, they don't know too much about politics.
They just know that, and again, you mentioned Trump doing this.
Like, he was so awful that it's just very easy to turn off to the details and
go, well, I'm
with the Democrats and the left.