Wednesday, December 18, 2024 - Reviewing Bill & Jane's 'random' convo & Bill's MAGA-ish mindset

Bill Maher's made a quite comfortable living pointing out how Fox News & right wing talk radio has manipulated a bloc of voters - in his brand of comedic political satire from "Politically Incorrect" to "Real Time" to ... well, now, this era where he doesn't sound all that awfully different than Joe Rogan, honestly. Rogan, of course, is also a white male whose political views are actually very closely aligned to Maher's - and Maher's recent guest, Jane Fonda. Jane and Bill sat down for his ⁠"Club Random"⁠ podcast a few weeks ago, and I had a long drive back from Savannah last night, so I finally got around to eavesdropping on them. In this sit-down tequila swig, Fonda - age 87 - proved to be still sharp as a tack and didn't hold back when occasionally callhing Maher out for losing his liberal way. Bill's spent the past few years grousing about "far left" things like the ⁠NAACP issuing a travel advisory for anyone going to Florida ⁠as examples of "wokeism" run amok, but also confesses Demoratic politicians aren't governng in response to it and that Republicans just use these salacious headlines as fodder to campaign on. Fonda, meanwhile, spent the entire conversation parsing out valid points of view to support opposition to the sort of right wing dogwhistles ("Defund the police!" or trans carciturization) Maher himself has fallen victim to.