Bill Maher Addressed Generational Clashes on “Real Time”

Watch enough Real Time With Bill Maher and you’ll start to notice a recurring theme on the show: Maher’s frustration with the younger generation. It’s a subject he often addresses in broad strokes, so it was refreshing to see that the lead interview on this week’s show was with someone who’s all of 24 years old: political activist David Hogg, known for his advocacy in the wake of the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.

Maher acknowledged the elephant in the room early on. “We don’t often get someone your age!” he said early in his conversation with Hogg. And the two initially discussed the values of youth and age in politics, with Maher warning Hogg against being ageist and Hogg pointing to multiple politicians — Lyndon Baines Johnson and Joe Biden among them — who were first elected to Congress when they were in their twenties.

Hogg also specified that he sought a more balanced approach. “This is not to say that our government should all be 25-year-olds,” he said. “I don’t want that.”

One of the conversation’s more interesting points came when Hogg brought up talking to people outside of his bubble, including joining his college’s shooting club. “Harvard has a shooting club?” an incredulous Maher asked.

“It does,” Hogg replied. “It’s very, very small.” And he also shared the detail that in one competition, they “lost horribly” to West Point.

From there, the conversation turned to Israel and Palestine, where the two men were most at odds. Hogg stated his support for a two-state solution and was unflinching in his criticism of the Netanyahu administration. Eventually, Maher shifted the conversation to other topics, observing that neither one was likely to change the other’s mind.

He moved from there to another contentious subject: that of generational anxiety. Here, Hogg sought out some common generational ground, comparing school shooting drills to the atomic bomb drills of decades before. Maher countered by arguing that, hey, his generation hadn’t had that kind of anxiety. Hogg’s response was sobering: “The difference for us, Bill, is that the bomb is going off multiple times a year.”

The two found more common ground when Hogg argued that social media also plays a part. That thread continued throughout the episode; during the panel discussion, Maher and guests Joe Scarborough and Mark Cuban tried to figure out just what Elon Musk’s deal is. Maher contrasted SpaceX’s successful test of its ability to catch a booster rocket with Musk’s penchant for conspiracy-laden posts on social media.

“One of the biggest entrepreneurs, literally of the last century, can be a fucking troll at the same time,” Cuban said.

Perhaps the most resonant moment of the episode came near the end of New Rules, when Maher declared that “[voters] want someone to vote for.” It echoed nothing quite so much as Hogg’s argument early in their conversation that he was tired of “people voting against something,” which he’d seen in the last two elections. Maybe there’s common ground to be found after all.

Bill Maher Debated Masculinity and Movements on a New “Real Time”

Unsurprisingly, there was plenty of election discussion this time out

Some other notable moments from the episode:

Maher on the upcoming election: “I will concede, I am a bit anxious. That’s the difference between me and Trump: I will concede.”
Maher on Japan’s government launching a dating app: “It’s like the public option for fucking.”
Maher’s declaration of “streaming is ruining football!” got a big cheer from the audience.
New Rules argued that the notion of the “October Surprise” is overrated.”You simply cannot surprise the voter who’s seen it all,” Maher said — something very true when it comes to Donald Trump’s candidacy.