Comedian and HBO host Bill Maher issued a “New Rule” during his Friday evening show, “Real Time with Bill Maher,” telling his audience that he had taken an informal poll and determined that Americans would like to make 2024 “the year of sanity.”
Maher reflected on the state of national politics going into 2024’s presidential election cycle, and said that he no longer saw a battle between the political left and the political right – instead, he said that it was down to “normal vs. crazy.”
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The battle for the soul of America isn’t right vs. left. It’s normal vs. crazy. pic.twitter.com/xRDMuJpAGT
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) January 20, 2024
“And finally, New Rule for 2024, America has to go back on its meds,” Maher began, explaining that he had talked to a number of people over the holidays and that the majority said they would like to see 2024 be “the year of sanity.”
“Let’s make this the year of sanity,” he said again. “Everybody thinks we’ve gone bonkers. And a lot of it is because the far ends on both left and right have gotten way too much attention — which begs the question, how do you suck all of the oxygen out of the room and still not get any to your brain?”
Asking whether it was even possible to find the middle ground anymore, Maher went on to list a series of issues that proved America had “gone bats***.”
“What does strike a sane person as crazy?” he asked, and then answered: “I don’t know, if you were going to ask me, I would start with the fact that I still occasionally still see someone driving alone with a mask on. Who do they think they’re going to get it from? The lady in the next car putting on her makeup?”
Maher went on to describe what he saw as the middle ground: “Socially liberal but not stupid woke. Fiscally sane but not cruel. Is this really that hard? Trans people should be respected and protected, but no penises in women’s prisons maybe? Legalize pot but maybe stop giving drugs to hard drug addicts? Nikki Haley says America’s never been racist, and social justice warriors say there’s been no progress since ‘Amos and Andy’?”
He concluded with a mention of the October 7th Hamas terror attack in Israel, saying that it was equally crazy to see Americans marching and rallying in support of the terrorists.
“A terrorist organization in the Middle East that treats women like slaves, invaded Israel last October and shot hundreds of young people at a music festival in the desert,” he said. “And now America’s streets are full of parades in support of the shooters, led by the exact kind of people who would be at a music festival in the desert. That’s the literal standard for involuntary commitment: when you’re a danger to yourself.”
“The battle for the soul of this country isn’t right or left. It’s normal versus crazy,” he declared.