A Long Overdue Understanding: Bill Maher, Elon Musk, and the State of Things

At long last, it's time to let go of old assumptions and recognize what's actually happening here

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It’s like church or the city coming to take your trash and recycling. Our weeks are marked by these events in a way that make the passage of time familiar. And so is Real Time With Bill Maher. For over two decades the comedian Bill Maher has been hosting this show on HBO and, in recent years, every new episode is another opportunity for people to take to social media and vent their frustrations.

This stems from the very thing that makes Real Time popular in the first place. Every Friday night Maher interviews a guest, talks with a panel, and finishes with a segment called “New Rules” in which he riffs off of recent events and lays out “new rules” by which society should function. For the majority of his tenure these rules and these segments have focused on a few familiar topics - including the absurdity of the Right, the dangers of religion, and the need for legalization of marijuana - but then, when Maher turns his sights on issues some of his wider audience holds sacrosanct, there is a predictable outrage.

Maher’s recent ventings have been as predictable as those in the past. He thinks young people are too sensitive. He rolls his eyes at transgender concerns, pronouns, the need for more consideration and tolerance. With the same gusto he used to reserve for laying into priests abusing kids or GOP stalwarts using God to police morals, he now attacks “woke revolutionaries.”

The backlash begins in, ahem, real-time, and then extends into Saturday. By the time Sunday rolls around, it has become a trending topic in many liberal circles. And it is continually framed in the same fashion: “What happened to Bill Maher?”

In the most recent episode, Maher welcomed Elon Musk to his show and proceeded to spend over twenty minutes polishing the billionaire’s boots. He inferred he was a “great man of history,” a dangerous philosophy that gives the wealthy and powerful carte blanche to do anything they want while ignoring the lives and fates of the “small” people they crush under heel. Maher continually praised Musk for changing the world while spotlighting “they,” a familiar shadow foe and conglomerate of ungrateful people, conspirators, and haters who simply cannot recognize Musk’s greatness. “They attack you a lot,” Maher said. Musk was quick to affirm: “They do.”

It was an incredibly useful demonstration of something that often alludes understanding. For Musk, it was exactly what the doctor ordered. For months now he has been saddled with accusations of sexual impropriety, has openly embraced Far Right fascistic notions and oppression, and, in every single instance, every single venture, he has failed miserably.

Yet, Maher’s decision here is to dillute all of Musk’s failures, not to mention the dangerous things like platforming white supremacists on social media and participating in authoritarian state censorship, as nothing more than people attempting to hinder him from gifting us a better future. If we could just get over our petty selves and concerns, if we could just learn to love our billionaire overlords, if we just gave them more power, more resources, more love, then maybe, just maybe, we might get out of our myriad crises and discover our true and wonderful destiny.

Maher frames the whole thing very quickly in terms of “Good” and “Evil,” which is ripe coming from a man who built his career on attacking religious zeolotry. Musk, he tells us, is using his power and wealth for “Good,” which means, again, he should be beyond criticism or contempt. To further the point, Maher continues to harp on the “Great Men of History” trope, casting Musk and other inventors of such technology as “the iPhone and the atom bomb” as gods who hand us down the defining tools. “Those are the cards and the rest of us just play them,” Maher says.

And then we’re off to the races. Maher moves on to the problem of the “woke mind virus.” Musk is quick to tee off here, beginning his answer with a bit of script borrowed, intentionally, from a previous episode in which the host took a long and winding rant about “nepo babies,” “wokeism,” and sports being the last refuge of meritocracy. That rant, which Musk cribs from, attacks both the privileged in Hollywood, while also going after universities supposedly “lowering their standards.” By the time it finishes, Maher proclaims that, in sports, it doesn’t “matter who you are,” which conveniently, and suspiciously, forgets that athletes with the wealth and time and resources to both train and participate in luxuries like specialized leagues and study under expensive coaches are most often the ones who make it professionally.

Regardless. What we experience now, in the interview with Musk, is a conversation between two wealthy, white men about the dangers of “anti-meritocratic” ideology. Depending on the day, Musk is worth north of $170 billion dollars. Maher sits around $140 million. It’s notable that both have been criticized by so-called “woke” people. Musk for his alleged harassment and anti-democratic beliefs. Maher for casually dropping the N-word and a whole host of unnecessary provocations. It shouldn’t be a surprise that these two wealthy, white men who have felt threatened by so-called “wokeness” want to join forces and attack it.

That they do so as wanting to protect “meritocracy” and “free-speech” is important. They share common goals in both spaces. To believe there is a “meritocracy,” and there most certainly isn’t, is to protect both their sucess and their images of themselves. This is why we see so many liberals, the same troubled by Donald Trump and MAGA, also take a breath and then talk about “the Left” going too far. (Just to reiterate, there is no “Left” as it has been systematically depowered and, in widespread instances, literally assasinated and murdered). In terms of “free speech,” both Musk and Maher desperately need to protect their own wealth and livelihoods. Being public figures who use their platforms aggressively to spout whatever happens to cross their minds, the possibility of being “canceled,” or even being moderately inconvenienced, is too much of a cross to bear.

And in this, we find one of the most misunderstood aspects of Liberalism. For the majority of our lives, especially since the 1990’s and Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh’s aggressive attacks on Bill Clinton and “tax and spend liberals,” we have been led to believe that Liberalism, as an ideology, was one thing, while it was, in fact, another thing altogether. It has been portrayed as homogeneous, a predictable set of values that, depending on point of view, either adds up to naive and dangerous or good and virtuous. But it can also be a smokescreen for self-dealing and cruelty disguised through performative displays.

We have been led to believe that Liberalism, as an ideology, was one thing, while it was, in fact, another thing altogether. It has been portrayed as homogeneous, a predictable set of values that, depending on point of view, either adds up to naive and dangerous or good and virtuous. But it can also be a smokescreen for self-dealing and cruelty disguised through performative displays.

Both Musk and Maher have lived within the comfortable circles of Liberalism the entirety of their careers. Because Musk produced electric vehicles, because he openly expressed concern about climate change, because he grounded his ideology in forwarding human progress instead of regressive, oppressive conservatism, it was stood to reason he was on the side of “Good.” Maher took George W. Bush to task, used his show to air scathing attacks on the corporate powers behind the Iraq War, the pharmaceutical industry, talked constantly of environmentalism and civil liberties. Again, “Good.”

But our understanding of Liberalism is skewed, in part because of the previously mentioned attack on the Left. It has left us with a completely lopsided political system that has marched angrily to the far right, dragging “moderates” for the ride. Other than a few progressive and semi-leftist politicians here and there, all we have left is aspiring authoritarianism and neoliberal advocates who have everything to gain from having this same, detestable system lurch forward regardless of who gets hurt.

In other words, Musk and Maher haven’t changed.

They have always been self-serving individuals. The stories they tell themselves, the stories they tell us to bring us along for the ride, have always been in service of their bottom-line. You can believe climate change is real and still want to push forward with a system that ensures the real consequences will hit us like a tsunami wave. You can believe civil liberties are important while still sitting idly by while others’ rights are trampled.

Liberalism can be a force for good, but history has shown it can only serve the interests of people who benefit from authoritarian tactics and features. It makes it feel better. It serves as a salve for those who want to be better than others when it comes to these things. But it also provides an ideology ready-made for entitites like the Democratic Party who throw up their hands when it comes to realizing real and lasting change while saying they really, really, really wish they could make it better. But liberalism cherishes the restraints and cherishes the espoused principles which never quite make it.

Musk and Maher didn’t change. The circumstances changed.

This supposed “meritocracy” has been revealed as the bogus fraud. When times are less tough for the majority, when it still feels like things might be getting better or at least not getting worse, you can have faith in something far off and abstract. When times get worse, as they are now, as neoliberalism spirals towards its hard-handed alternative tactics, that meritocracy becomes a joke and the espoused principles of certain liberals get revealed as slogans and catchphrases.

To be clear, that doesn’t mean all liberals are bankrupt ideologically. Times like these reveal who people are and especially who they have always been. There simply isn’t room for those proclaimed ideals if they are not acted upon. This is about more than paying lipservice to tolerance or acceptance or beliefs that can be easily summed up on T-shirts or in memes. This is about where the rubber meets the road and where the future is determined.

Times like these reveal who people are and especially who they have always been. There simply isn’t room for those proclaimed ideals if they are not acted upon. This is about more than paying lipservice to tolerance or acceptance or beliefs that can be easily summed up on T-shirts or in memes. This is about where the rubber meets the road and where the future is determined.

For future purposes, this isn’t just Bill Maher or Elon Musk or Glenn Greenwald or Matt Taibbi or any of these other people or figures who have seemingly “changed.” It’s also for institutions. Media companies. Newspapers. Cable networks. Politicians. Entities. You name it. What is being revealed is what has always been there. It is time to take stock of what you believed, what you hold dear and true. What things matter to you in a very real and literal sense. What things are you willing to fight for. Who you are willing to fight for. And recognize that so much of the world you thought you knew was never real to begin with.

With that recognition, of what is real and what was never real, you can begin to create something lasting. Something true.

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I just returned from a trip to the West Coast to promote THE MIDNIGHT KINGDOM: A HISTOR OF POWER, PARANOIA, AND THE COMING CRISIS. I was lucky enough to appear on a panel with Steve Phillips (author of HOW WE WIN THE CIVIL WAR) and Jonathan Lemire (editor at Politico and author of THE BIG LIE) at the Los Angeles Times Book Festival. The discussion, I thought was substantive, and afterward I got to meet a great deal of very kind people. Then, I traveled to Phoenix to Changing Hands Bookstore, where I was able to have a conversation with my podcast co-host Nick Hauselman.

I’ve received messages since then and I just want to say, to those people, and those of you reading, how much it all means to me. Writing a book is a strange thing. THE MIDNIGHT KINGDOM was an especially hard task. Winding your way through the history of the modern world and wrestling with white supremacy, religious mythologies, and weaponized conspiracy theories is tough stuff, especially when you’re being attacked and harassed and stalked. It’s a lonely thing, writing a book, and then it’s out in the world. Since it was published you’ve all been so supportive, and I wanted to say thank you again.

A lot of the writers I know and have met say the same thing: once they’re done, they have trouble imagining doing it again. Begrudgingly, they will, but it feels impossible at the time. I’m not like that. And I know a few others who aren’t either. I’m already starting to dive into preparation for the next book project, and I think one of the reasons I’m able to do this, to continue with the work, is because of you. There’s something special about what we’re doing and what we’re discussing. How our media and politicians treat this gathering crisis, as if it’s a passing phase or a hysterical illusion, means we have to take care of one another in the face of overwhelming criticism and dismissal. We know what is happening. We see it. We feel it. We diagnose it. And in our condition, and in our place away from a mainstream that diminishes very real and very serious concerns, we have to rally around one another.

Again, this is my way of saying thank you. And that I appreciate you more than I can communicate.