Bill Maher noted during an interview on The Joe Scarborough Podcast that there is an appetite for comedy that calls out the “woke” elements of the political left.
He said that for the first time in his life he has been performing in front of audiences comprised of people from both sides of the political spectrum, whereas previously his audience was almost entirely liberal.
“For the first time in my life I am playing to a mixed audience. I was in Nashville about a month ago, and the audience was about 60-40 I would say, liberal to conservative. That never used to happen, never. And I think it’s because, you know, ten years ago, in my opinion anyway, the left did not have a crazy section. There was no such thing as woke. And now they do have a crazy section which I call out, as a liberal. And I think I’m kinda one of the only people doing that. So, there’s a hunger to hear that,” Maher said.
“I think traditional liberals have had it with the far-left of their own party and they enjoy this too,” he said.
Maher noted that during his Nashville performance when he made jokes about former President Donald Trump “there was a little grumbling and groaning, but not in a mean way,” and that there was some of this as well when he mocked the left. “But everybody there was in a good mood, they were all laughing together.”
The host of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” noted that “unless you solve the hate problem, you will never solve any of our political problems. He said that “when somebody just hates the other person, you don’t even listen to what they say, and you won’t even entertain what their point is.”
“This is a big country full of people who don’t think like you, and that’s ok. And, you know, if you just went to a ball game with them, and politics never came up, you would not know that you hated them so much. And we gotta get back to that,” Maher said.