42 Comments
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Susan D's avatar

Folks losing their minds because Maher met with Trump and had a talk that wasn't at drawn swords is the very definition of what some call "Trump Derangement Syndrome". Usually I roll my eyes when TDS is thrown out as an insult, but it gets harder to do when a meeting - that frankly means nothing, policy-wise - is the subject of such ire. Did these folks forget that FDR shared a stage with Stalin at one point?

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Walternate 🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇺🇹🇼🇩🇰🇬🇱🇲🇽🇵🇦's avatar

Without comment toward anything else you say, I don't think one can honestly compare the obligations of heads of state during a world war to those of a comedian/TV host during a time of relative peace.

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Susan D's avatar

Of course. Mahers one time meeting meant very little - nothing really - with regard to policy and that is why I am pointing out the absurdity of getting bent out of shape about it.

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Ken Kovar's avatar

Yes I hate that term but yeah it really fits when these people make statements like that. It’s bill Maher for Christ sake, he always engages the other side and I love him for it 😎

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PurpleAmerica's avatar

Thank you.

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skbunny's avatar

FDR did share a stage with Stalin and got suckered by him, which is how Eastern Europe was miserable for 50 years.

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PurpleAmerica's avatar

Eastern Europe was miserable for 50 years because the Soviet Army occupied all of it at the end of WWII. It wasnt the US who stormed Berlin and uncovered Hitler's bunker. In light of that, FDR did not get "suckered." In fact, what FDR negotiated at Yalta helped establish the World order to the US's benefit ever since.

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Ken Kovar's avatar

For real!

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SteveF's avatar

I admit I haven't been too engaged with this topic. As a former moderate Republican turned independent to escape MAGA I follow several substacks and perspectives, so I might have just clicked on by this topic.

Maybe this article has already been offered as a counterpoint to your extended essay: https://placesjournal.org/article/hitler-at-home/?cn-reloaded=1. Hitler at Home.

We are in an America in which POT (Party of Trump) trumpets everyone to their left as radical leftist, socialist libtards. Someone having a staged congenial visit with the leader of an increasingly authoritarian government is maybe something you could click on by.

So few liberals are socialists; they have purple in them too. I don't count the number of paragraphs and arrows slung by those with digital platforms, and I encourage you to use your platform to rely less on Trump at Home and get back to emperilled Purple at Home.

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skbunny's avatar

It was my distinct understanding that FDR thought Stalin was reasonable and let him roll over everything. Based on the awful results in Eastern Europe I would say that was a bad bargain with the devil. I am not aware of how that possibly helped the world order so will have to read up on that.

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Toby Kunkler's avatar

I like your history lessons.

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PurpleAmerica's avatar

The thing is they're not really "Lessons", they're facts usually needed to retort something stupid someone says.

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Andy S's avatar

I’m sorry but after what we saw today with El Salvador and the refusal to send back an innocent man and therefore he spends life in a labor camp…..thats Hitler

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Scott's avatar

I’m sorry but you have zero sense of perspective or understanding of history. You’ve been brainwashed by constant repetition of trigger words and you can’t think for yourself anymore. I’d pity you, but braying jackasses don’t elicit pity.

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Andy S's avatar

You’re a giant a-hole if you think sending people to permanent labor camps with no trials is ok. Seriously you’re a monster and I have no respect for your perspective not to mention I doubt you’re smart at all

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Scott's avatar

Try not to believe everything Joy Reid tells you.

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Andy S's avatar

Also I love conservatives that idolize liberal comedy like Futurama

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Andy S's avatar

Lmaooooo try Richard Hanania doofus

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Peter Atterberg's avatar

You sir have earned a follow from me! Great article!

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A Joseph's avatar

You're making an awful lot out of a 1.5% margin of victory. And if you don't like the analogies to Hitler/Stalin, the solution is for Trump to stop doing things that remind people of them like kidnapping people off of streets in America and sending them overseas to prisons/concentration camps or insisting that American institutions kowtow to him. Those are things which are really happening

Personally, I don't care about Bill Maher one way or another, but Trump is destroying the country and that matters a lot!

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Toby Kunkler's avatar

WaaA, but not a PhD. I feel welcomed here, but I only compare PurpleAmerica with common sense and sanity. Not with 'Stallin' like the couple of commits prior to this one. (WaaA) We are all Americans.

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Dave's avatar

No matter how fast the Republicans sink the Democrats manage to plummet farther and faster.

The historic Democratic icons FDR, and JFK would laugh at what passes for policy in their own beloved party. Although they were upper class they understood that victory for their party depended on appealing to working class voters. Current party leaders distain the “deplorable” and “racist” members of the working class.

A laundry list of things for Democrats to keep and to dump if they ever want to win again nationwide.

Keep a woman’s right to choose for the first trimester.

Dump abortion until birth unless the mother’s health is at risk or the fetus is not viable.

Keep a concern for climate change and the environment and grow nuclear power.

Dump intermittent, unreliable renewable energy that requires backup continuous generating capacity which is then used intermittently. A ridiculously expensive approach. Even more important, realize that the stifling maze of environmental procedures that now must be followed to build anything has raised the price of necessities like mass transit and housing that the working class needs to survive. Figure out how to build stuff quickly.

Keep and develop new effective vaccines.

Dump vaccine mandates.

Keep equality of opportunity for all. Dump equity of results based on discriminating against men, whites and Asians in a futile attempt to compensate for past discrimination against women and blacks. Recognize that D.E.I. Is unconstitutional.

Keep the protection of gay and lesbian rights.

Dump men in women’s sports, private spaces and prisons. Oh, and mutilating children who might grow up to be gay.

Keep an opportunity for selective high value immigration.

Dump sanctuary cities and open borders.

Keep helping the homeless find jobs and a place to live.

Dump camping in cities, shitting in the streets and allowing open drug use.

Keep a concern for due process in criminal justice.

Dump letting shoplifters and other petty thieves off the hook and releasing predators back on the streets without bail to kill and maim again.

Keep support for unions and fair wages

Dump “free trade” policies that have devastated our manufacturing sector.

Do all of the above and start governing like you know what the fuck you’re doing and you might just find your way back to power.

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Don Quixote's Reckless Son's avatar

Your comments are so misinformed I don't know where to begin. You really have no idea what you're talking about.

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iwoOstoja's avatar

republican Joe Walsh ( such a liberal lefty too bc he doesn't agree ? ) here is his seasoned response:

Joe Walsh

@WalshFreedom

Look

@billmaher

"I’m all about sitting down with people you disagree with. And bcuz I was such a divisive political asshole back in the day, that’s all I do now - have respectful conversations with people who don’t think like me, to help heal the divide I helped to create. So it’s my mission to sit down with darn near anyone of good faith. I sit down with Trump’s supporters all the time bcuz I used to be one. But I would not sit down with Trump. And certainly not in private. Why not? Bcuz Trump is NOT a man of good faith. Bcuz Trump is utterly incapable of good faith. Bcuz Trump is at war against all that has made America good & great. Bcuz Trump is at war against democracy, the rule of law, basic human decency, and the truth. That’s why not. I no longer need to understand him, I just want to defeat him. So unless he were willing to sit down with me with the cameras on and answer real tough questions, there’s no point. And meeting with him in private just helps him, by normalizing him. That’s what you did Bill."

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ANDREW LAZARUS's avatar

What’s Maher’s point?

Goebbels was notoriously charming with foreign journalists (at least, non-Jews).

Stalin was also a great host, ask Churchill.

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Dreamweasel's avatar

Maher’s big takeaway from the meeting was that The Private Trump is very different from The Public Trump. This may be true. But The Public Trump is the one who’s running the country, and the only Trump any of us are going to see.

Maher seemed uninterested in exploring this dichotomy very deeply. If anything, Trump’s apparent lucidity makes his public behavior all the more damning. Instead, Maher’s position was a defensive crouch, acting far angrier at his liberal critics for daring to condemn him for anything complimentary about Trump.

Maher’s attitude during his Real Time wrapup suggested that one-on-one “civility” is more important than the big picture. What Maher would portray as maturity looks a lot like complicity.

Trump let Maher speak & muttered vague affirmations, but I don’t think anyone believes Trump was “listening” in any substantive way. Kid Rock suggested the meeting for the same reason Trump agreed to it: he wanted Maher to walk away believing, at some level, that Trump Really Isn’t That Bad. Combine that with Maher’s aforementioned defensiveness about liberal critics, and a fuller picture begins to emerge.

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Vince Rothman's avatar

I’m on Pod Save America’s Slack and some of the people on it are so insufferable in how they get pissed off at their congress person.

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Joan MG's avatar

This just reminded me—Probably the most honest and raw conversation I've seen in a long time is the one between Bill Maher and one of the guys from Pod Save America. Lovett, I think. They're both kind of emotionally honest-ish. https://youtu.be/z15gWRBaPMk?si=NvkAHy5jUa0wyhjA

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Gigi Tierney's avatar

Well, went back to read Dr. Janevski’s blocked comment and he just gained a follow. I like you Mr. Purple, and agree the Stalin Hilter usage is so hackneyed as to be useless. But you certainly seem quite sensitive to the Niedermeyers of the world.

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PurpleAmerica's avatar

I wrote a response to him and then decided it wasn't worth the effort. I'm never going to have a good conversation with him, and I follow the Tom Nichols rule on that-- if you're going to just argue for the sake of arguing and not read any of the content, it makes it very easy to block. He clearly didn't read any of it.

I might add, that if he disagreed, he's perfectly fine ignoring and moving on. Just as you are.

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Aaron Rowe's avatar

You gave a follow to a snob? You must be a fantastic judge of character.

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G. Alex Janevski, PhD's avatar
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PurpleAmerica's avatar

Apparently you missed the entire point of the post. Please re-read it again. You're a PhD so I know you know how to actually read and comprehend.

As for not commenting on what you wrote, I can actually choose not to respond to things I disagree with and move on, unlike so many like yourself. In fact, its easier and quite honestly a better thing to do. But since you requested a response, that's the only reason I feel the need to have to write all this shit out instead of just ignoring you altogether. And since from this point on you're going to be muted, because its so damn important for you to consistently write diatribes with people you disagree with instead of, you know actually work, It's just not worth the aggrevation to deal with you. Ta Ta

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Aaron Rowe's avatar

You are a pathetic snob.

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Color Me Skeptical's avatar

Agree with you completely. From all accounts, Trump is solicitous and can be quite charming. Trumpism and the MAGA movement, on the other hand, are quite dangerous and ruthless. Even when he doesn’t think he did, Maher helped, albeit in a very small way, normalize what is happening now.

I liken it somewhat to how, prior to the election, Democratic politicians were claiming that democracy was at stake. But they really didn’t behave like it was. If they had, they would have taken different actions.

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Alex Vayslep's avatar

Well done.

I love my liberal friends, but too often they play right into MAGAs hands. Populism on both got us in this mess. https://open.substack.com/pub/alexvayslep?r=49h0uf&utm_medium=ios

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Jerkwad robot's avatar

Hmm. I'm not up in arms over the meeting, and I agree that lobbing insults without talking to people is wrong.

However, it's clear that he is intentionally using a persona in public that is destructive in every way possible. I don't care how personable you are... that is evil.

Calling him that won't win anyone an election, but that doesn't mean it's not worth saying. Just don't run on it.

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Don Quixote's Reckless Son's avatar

Comparing Trump to authoritarians is hyperbole? Have you been paying attention for the past three months?

Our Democracy is under direct attack and centrists like you downplaying what the Trump administration is doing are a part of the part.

WAKE THE FORK UP!!!!!

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