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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33104 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025

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I don't know if Adam Friedland will seize the day to become the ironic Bill Maher for under-40s

Is becoming Bill Maher supposed to be some sort of accomplishment? His schtick mostly seems to be begging the Democrats not to be crazy (and failing) for 1.5 years, and then spending the other 0.5 years during peak election season (midterm and presidential) sheep herding all the audience he grown being "contrarian" into voting Blue No Matter Who anyways because "The Republicans are still worse."

It's working less and less well as time goes on. And every time he goes "I was wrong, here are some of the good points Republicans make" for a few months. But then another election comes up and the mask of reason falls and the pure partisan comes back out.

His schtick mostly seems to be begging the Democrats not to be crazy (and failing) for 1.5 years, and then spending the other 0.5 years during peak election season (midterm and presidential) sheep herding all the audience he grown being "contrarian" into voting Blue No Matter Who anyways because "The Republicans are still worse."

You missed Step 0, where he's in denial about how crazy Democrats are. See the "menstruating men" discussion with Dennis Prager.

Purely in terms of career, Bill Maher had a successful 20 year long running show before what you mentioned. He's a legitimate C to B list celerity. He's not a Colbert or Fallon, but he's not nobody.

To be honest I haven't seen a Bill Maher episode in a very long time, although I imagine it the same as you describe. I didn't want to overdo the Rogan bit and Maher is likely a more realistic goal audience-size wise. I don't think we'll see a Rogan-sized alternative messaging apparatus that the DNC can wield at will. That whole idea also overstates how much Rogan is of the right.

I've said elsewhere that the Dem's would see better returns if they rehabilitated Rogan's image for their own voters, then sent people to persuade Rogan on issues that are important to them. Rogan is not inclined to think of himself as partisan, so if you can teach your voters to stomach some of his disagreeable positions, then you can win space in his head and platform. Not being able to go on Rogan is a major own goal for future D campaigns.

It's working less and less well as time goes on. And every time he goes "I was wrong, here are some of the good points Republicans make" for a few months. But then another election comes up and the mask of reason falls and the pure partisan comes back out.

That's what punditry has been used for and yes we suffer for it. This show is light on punditry or commentary as that's secondary to it as an authentic comedy show. It's more a vibe of lefty, which makes it viable as a pathway to Reach Young Men in a different way than younger TikTok propagandists, or more offensive million-dollar-a-day streamers.

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