 So, not too long ago, Bill Maher insisted that he hasn't actually shifted to the right, contrary to popular belief, he's still the same person he's always been. He's saying a lot more right-wing talking points now and sounds more and more like a Fox News host every single episode that he posts, but I mean, it's really everyone else that's changed while he's stayed the same. He's still the center-left liberal that he's always been. Okay, well, let's check in on Bill Maher. What is he talking about now? Well, in the latest episode of Real Time, he talked about Florida's don't-say-gay bill. And he's going to defend this bill's existence. And not only that, he's going to justify the existence of the don't-say-gay bill by invoking critical race theory. Now, is he going to point out that critical race theory is a manufactured, bullshit, culture war issue that the GOP used to gain support? No, he's going to say, well, because liberals are so disingenuous when it comes to CRT and because the right-wingers have a point here, maybe it's also the case that they have a point when it comes to this don't-say-gay bill. So let's take a look. I'll let somebody ask this. Is Florida's don't-say-gay bill designed to trap Democrats into saying they support teaching young children about sexuality? It's the question, but we can broaden that to anything about that. I mean, I was reading about it today. I mean, if people don't know, this is something to say, this is about to sign. And I guess it's a reaction to Republicans who feel that there's too much talk in lower grades. I think it's only, they're talking about kindergarten to third grade. So we're talking about very young kids who, as always with this stuff, you know, there's not like there's no kernel of truth in that maybe kids that young shouldn't be thinking about sex at all. I don't think it's specific. I think don't say, it's not like you're not allowed to literally not say gay. But they just don't want teachers talking about it. They think it's the province of parents. What do you think? What do you think, Frank? I'm curious. I mean, that sounds reasonable on the face of it. I mean, I'm not my main concern as a gay man who advocates for gay rights is not that second graders know who Harvey Milk is. That is not the key. That is the key to LGBTQ equality. But I mean, I also question, I mean, is this really need to be at the top of these politicians list? I mean, this is a total, this is not, this is not going to improve Floridian's lives. This is not an urgent problem. This is a dodge. It's another culture war that's meant to score cheap easy points rather than really solving Americans problems. That's what I mean. I don't know if this, I read the bill also. But seriously, do we know that this was an enormous problem pervasive in Florida schools? No, but like this is what it is. This reeks to me of something that happened on a few occasions and has been blown into something. Well, I don't know about that. The same thing with the race, with the CRT thing. I feel like it's disingenuous when the liberals say, you know, they, we just want to teach history. And like, no one's against that. Well, like, I'm sure there are some fucking rednecks who are against that. But most reasonable people are not against realistically teaching history. It's not like you can't mention slavery. They're talking about something else that is going on. I've read too many reports, too many first person reports from teachers who say, I can't go on teaching like this because this is insanity what I'm doing in this classroom, separating kids by race and oppressors and non oppressors and their little kids. It is going on. I don't know what is going on with the gender as much. Let me read what some, what part of the bill it says, the measure would, this is from CNN, would require districts to adopt procedures for notifying a student's parent if there is a change in the student's services or monitoring related to the student's mental, emotional, physical, health or what being. Okay, then it says something LGBTQ advocates argue could lead to some students being outed to their parents. That phrase struck me as odd. Like, outed to parents, like, shouldn't parents know everything anyway? The concept that, without, I think that, but I think that fell out of the bill. I think that's actually no longer a problem. Well, the one that I read right before the show was that the vast majority of the bill is about that, is about parents' right to know if their child is identifying, changing the way that they're, you know, presenting if the teacher's calling them. I never named this kind of thing. I think in California, the school has more of those rights than the parent. I mean, he literally just sounds like a Fox News host. If you took what he said there and told me it was a quote from Sean Hannity or Lori Ingram, I wouldn't question it, because he just sounds like a Fox News host at this point. It's astonishing that he still maintains that he hasn't shifted to the right, that he's not a conservative. And he's still saying this, there's an update. So we'll talk about that later on. But let's address the bill itself. So he claims that, you know, the prospect of children being outed because of this bill is, you know, not necessarily a bad thing, because when we're talking about kids that young, ages, kindergarten through third grade, of course, the parents should know everything. And in theory, that's true. Of course, you want the teachers to communicate how their child is developing. That makes a lot of sense. But in the context of this homophobic, don't say gay bill, think about the implications of why that could be dangerous. You know, if you're in third grade or second grade, you're not going to come out and say, hey, I'm gay. I mean, maybe there are kids who do that, but they're not just going to come out and say, hi, I am a homosexual. In second grade, I acknowledge this. That's extremely, extremely rare, right? But where it gets dangerous is perhaps the teacher notices that your son isn't really hanging out with his male classmates. He's not playing sports. In fact, he's hanging out more with his female classmates, playing with dolls, playing house. And, you know, he's acting a little bit effeminate. So if you are instructed because of this bill to tell parents about this and that kid has a homophobic parent who then beats his child because he's acting like a sissy or a little bit too effeminate, you could potentially endanger children here. And the bill is bad because it other rises same sex couples. If you are a kid who has two mommies or two daddies, well, then you're not going to be allowed to talk about it. If you're a teacher in Florida with a same sex spouse or if you're a transgender person who teaches, well, then you can be penalized because of this bill if you happen to mention that. So the bill is unnecessary. It's discriminatory and it treats gay people as if they are the other and LGBTQ plus people more broadly speaking as if they're the other. That's why good people oppose it. But the framing of that question there was actually pretty savvy. Whoever submitted that question to Bill Maher knows more than him because they asked, is Florida's don't say gay bill designed to trap Democrats into saying they support teaching young children about sexuality? And the answer is, yes, there are many reasons to oppose that bill. But people who oppose this bill don't oppose this bill because they believe that when you go to first grade, that's when you should begin teaching kids about homosexuality. Nobody supports that. But that's exactly the framing that the right is using to demonize people against this bill. For example, look at the Chiron's from a recent airing of Laura Ingram's program on Fox News. It says liberals are sexually grooming elementary students. And the second one here says Dems happy to run on pro grooming platform. So the idea is if you oppose this bill, it must be because you want to teach children about sex because you want to groom them because you want to date them. They're literally reviving the gaze or pedophiles trope. And Bill Maher is in lockstep with them here. He's saying, actually, maybe we shouldn't teach kids about sexuality. Who wants to teach kids about sexuality? Of course, at that age, we shouldn't be teaching kids about sexuality. But that's not what this is about. People are opposed to this. Good people are opposed to this because it's discriminatory and it could lead to unforeseen consequences that hurts potentially gay kids or kids with same-sex parents. It's just ridiculously unnecessary and homophobic. Now, Frank Bruni, the gay guy on the panel, very clearly wasn't prepared to answer this question. He says my main concern is not that second graders know who Harvey Milk is, but does this really need to be at the top of these politicians lists? Now, he's right that this is a manufactured culture war issue, right? But he very clearly wasn't prepared to push back to be fair to him. I don't think that they were prepared to answer this question. This was something that an audience member had submitted to Bill Maher. So they kind of discussed this on a whim. But nonetheless, Bill Maher, you know that he went wrong here when he invoked critical race theory. So he claimed that liberals are disingenuous when they say that, you know, we just want to teach history, not critical race theory, but then he invokes that anecdote that is popularly referred to when people talk about critical race theory, you know, how teachers are forcing students to line up or or differentiate between oppressors and the privilege, yada, yada, yada, except everybody thinks that that's stupid. Right. That's an anecdote. Is this really a widespread phenomenon that's happening across the country? And you see the actual architect of this manufactured controversy, critical race theory, Christopher Rufo, he already admitted that the goal is to paint any and everything as critical race theory and make anything that they want to be toxic link to critical race theory because that is a good political technique to use. And he's kind of proven the efficacy of this strategy. So it is the case that conservatives are essentially equating history with critical race theory because critical race theory is not being taught to children. This is a legal theory that is taught at the postgraduate level. I didn't encounter critical race theory until I was in a PhD program. So we're not teaching kids about this. If kids are having to select who's oppressed and who isn't, that's not critical race theory. That's just the teacher who is stupid teaching a dumb lesson that's not going to teach kids anything. But nobody's saying that that's good. What we're saying is that that one anecdote does not mean that this is a widespread occurrence and it's a little bit unnecessary and hysterical to create an entire manufactured outrage movement over a couple of anecdotes. And see, this is the way that conservatives bait normal people into supporting their dumb fucking wedge issues. They'll say, oh, well, look at this one example of this teacher who said this or did this. So therefore we need a whole outrage movement over this. This is how they keep normal people to vote against their own self-interest. This is how they keep conservatives in their corner. And of course, Bill Maher, like the conservative that he is, took their bait hook, line and sinker. You can condemn anecdotes, but to suggest that because of one or two anecdotes, there's an entire trend going on. Well, that's conservative reactionary thinking, Bill Maher. But I mean, Bill Maher, he recently talked about whether or not he's actually conservative. So he appeared on the Ben Shapiro show. Now, just stop for a moment and think about that. He's not going on the Brian Tyler Cohen show. He's not going on TYT. He's not going on a Hassan stream. He's going on the Ben Shapiro show for an hour plus long interview because that's where he feels the most comfortable. And he's going to talk about whether or not he really is conservative now. And he's going to insist that he still hasn't changed, even though we just saw him argue in favor of the homophobic. Don't say gay, Bill. Take a look. Look, I haven't changed at all. My politics hasn't changed. They've changed. People say to me, sometimes, you know, have you changed? No, it's that five years ago, no one was talking about defunding the police. I never heard that phrase five years ago. That's not me changing. That's things changing. I'm reacting to it as I've always been, you know, letting three year olds decide what gender they are. This wasn't something five years ago. Free speech, you know, used to be a left wing thing that we were proud and owned. And now that seems to be under attack. So again, I think I've stayed the same. So the examples that he uses are incredibly stupid. It's it's something that you would expect a simpleton to say, not a seasoned political pundit. He says defund the police is new. A new political slogan popped up. I guess that's evidence that the left has shifted even further to the left and that Democrats have shifted to the left, except do you just not like the slogan? Do you think there's any merit to the claim that police departments have incredibly bloated budgets and maybe they shouldn't have giant budgets with military gear? I mean, do you think that that's just something that people are bringing up because they don't want there to be police? You have to really go a little bit further when you're talking about why you have an issue with this. But notice how there's no nuance here. He says letting three year olds decide what gender they are. This is this wasn't something five years ago. I don't even know what that means. What does that mean? Is this a common phenomenon where we are allowing children at the age of three to transition? We're giving them hormone replacement theory, sex changes. What do you mean by that? Because I don't know what he means by that. Does this mean that, you know, if you see a child play with girl toys, if your son is playing with Barbies, you slap them and you tell him that he's a fag? Does that mean that you're not letting your child transition? Or if, you know, you are letting your son play with Barbies or girl toys. Does that mean you're letting him be transgender? What do you mean, Bill? And see, he never explains any of this because all of it is reactionary garbage. He's not going to dive into the details and talk about the substance here because there is no substance or merit to what he's saying here. He also says free speech used to be a left wing thing. And now it's under attack. How you just defended the don't say gay bill. Isn't that a little bit sensorious? No, but he's saying this to somebody like Ben Shapiro. And I'm assuming that he's paying credence to the claim that on social media, right wingers are being silenced. Whereas if you looked up the Daily Top 10s for Facebook, the person who he's talking to, Ben Shapiro, dominates on a daily fucking basis. So again, there's no merit to that. And even if big tech is censoring conservative voices, which they are not. But even if they were, that isn't a First Amendment issue. That's an issue of how do we regulate big tech? Should we treat them as public utility? Should we nationalize them? Everything he's saying is conservative right wing talking points, but he simultaneously will deny that he's conservative. No, I haven't changed. Everyone else has changed. It's the left who really has gotten a little bit too extreme. Now, he says this within the same week of right wingers in Florida, passing a bill to form election police where Texas is investigating parents with trans teenagers as child abusers. I mean, the right has become so authoritarian that in some states they're passing bills that allow them to subvert the will of voters. So if they see election go the way that they don't like, they can send their own electors, rogue electors to the electoral college to overturn the will of the people. So as the right gets more and more authoritarian, more conspiratorial, more anti-vax, Bill Maher says, actually, it's the left. They're the ones who have gotten more extreme, not the right in this country. But yet I haven't changed. I'm not more conservative. I may parrot all of their talking points, but it's not me. It's you. No, Bill. Denying isn't going to change the fact that you're just a standard conservative now. See, he used to be more economically conservative, but socially liberal. But as time has gone on, he's just socially conservative now, too. And he could prove me wrong by denouncing these cultural war issues where the GOP tries to otherwise and discriminate against LGBTQ plus people. But he's not doing that because he agrees with them. So he can try to deny that he is a conservative at this point, but it's just getting comical. I mean, imagine being so narcissistic to think that you haven't changed ideologically. Literally, everyone else in the country has changed. Imagine thinking that imagine being that arrogant. So Bill Maher is delusional and he's also a conservative. Those two things kind of go hand in hand. So Bill, you can pretend all you want, that you're still a center left liberal, but you've changed, not everyone else. And I did. Recovery mode, my brain, I did. Recovery mode, my brain, I did.