Bill Maher Backs MAGA’s ‘Woke’ Wildfire Claims in Fiery Rant
Comedian Bill Maher joined right-wing pundits weaponizing California wildfires to lambast the state government’s progressive-leaning policies in his Friday monologue on HBO’s Real Time.
Maher prefaced his argument with, “Is ‘wokeness’ the main reason for the fires? Of course not.” But, he said, “it’s also not wrong to associate some of the unforced errors our government made with the things normies see as hallmarks of uber-progressive politics.”
He added, “Questionable budget priorities, high taxes that get you nothing, making everything about identity politics, virtue-signalling overseas instead of tending to the nuts and bolts at home.”
As for common sense, “We better get some of that back soon,” said Maher. “Because wildfires in California are like boob jobs in a strip club—inevitable, and they’re only going to get bigger.”
Earlier in his show, Maher railed against the current political climate, partisanship, and how he believes it all overshadows the real-world suffering caused by the state’s blazes—which have already killed more than two dozen people and are estimated to cost the state as much as $250 billion in damage, reported Business Insider.
“So many people choose to defend their own team, even over death,” said Maher. “A lot of Democrats in this one-party state this week went right to, ‘Don’t blame politicians, you can’t do anything about the wind’. Which is exactly half true: the wind part.”
A resident of Los Angeles himself, Maher then went on to blast California’s government for what he said was a failure to invest sufficient taxpayer money in firefighting resources for the notoriously fire-prone and increasingly dry state.
“Axios ran a story on how getting the water out of the hydrants in Pacific Palisades was more complicated than it seems,” he said. “I’m sure it is. I’m sure it’s very complicated. That’s why I pay 13 percent of my income in the state every year to people who, I assumed, were working on things like this.”
Maher later also ripped what he said was an effort to prioritize diversity, equity and inclusion programs over the effective provision of public resources—a common refrain among the likes of Elon Musk, top Republican politicos and right-wing commentators.
“The good news is, our fire chief is a lesbian,” said Maher. “Am I against a lesbian being fire chief? Of course not. Do I think a lesbian can do the job? Of course I do, and maybe she’s the best person for the job. Or maybe they really wanted a lesbian in that job, and she’s just the best lesbian for the job, and with essential services, that’s not good enough.”