Liberal comedian Bill Maher suggested Monday that President Donald Trump’s appeal to young White men is that he's one of few voices not condemning them for who they are.
On his "Club Random" podcast, Maher sat down with actor Joel Edgerton. While they commiserated over the role of guilt in religion, they both agreed on how modern society preaches new kinds of guilt, from not spending enough time with one’s children to shaming young White men.
"There's too much guilt. There's no reason for you to feel guilt," Maher said. "I'm sure you're, like, a better parent to your kids than, like, everybody was in my era as far as, like, how much time you spend with them. I mean, my parents in that generation, they didn't feel any obligation. It's like, ‘We brought you into this world. You have a roof. You have clothes. You have food. And you have your own life.’
"And we were better. I had such a free-range childhood of doing whatever the f--- I wanted. ‘Just be home by 6. That’s when dinner is.'"
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Maher criticized the idea of shaming working parents, including movie stars, for not being home with their children enough. "Get the f--- over yourself. Your dad's a movie star, and, you know, OK. So, like that's who he is. We can't change who we are.
"You know, there’s just so much of, like, this shaming," he continued. "You know, people wonder why so many young men vote for Trump. Well, maybe because, you know, he’s one guy who doesn’t make you feel guilty just for being born with a d---. You know? It’s true! It’s a lot of his appeal. They make you feel, you know, a lot of — not me, I’m old enough to remember when it was the reverse, so I get the backlash.
"If you’re 22 years old, you don’t remember a time when it was the reverse. So, you've only seen the backlash. You've only seen ‘White men bad!’"
"I remember when he first got voted in and the realization of the sort of lack of awareness of the way dudes felt in the world," Edgerton said.
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He noted the importance of merit and how the push for inclusivity above merit and common sense has gone too far.
"’I’m all for inclusivity,’ and then you speak to the same person, like a few months later, and like I'm f---ing terrified,’" Edgerton said. "And it’s like, why don’t you just be f---ing good at what you do?"
Maher acknowledged there are dark parts of America’s past but suggested people need to acknowledge how much better things have gotten and that society as a whole needs to restore the idea of merit.
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"The pendulum, like, shifts and changes, but in terms of merit, like merit is just a thing," Edgerton said. "And it's like, I mean, I don't know how you solve that problem, especially two White dudes sitting on armchairs talking about it."
"OK, but we're — again, that's the guilt thing that I'm not going to buy into," Maher said. "Just because we're White dudes doesn't mean we can't have opinions or that we can't have this discussion."
