HBO’s Real Time host Bill Maher said Republicans were ‘taken by a salesman,’ but warned liberals not to ‘humiliate’ them because it will drive them back down the ‘MAGA rabbit hole,’ despite Trump’s support ratings dropping.
‘You’ve got taken by a salesman,’ Maher, 66, said during Friday’s episode. ‘It happens to all of us.’
He also compared Trump supporters who have changed their opinion to people who ‘have dated a psycho’ and said ‘the last thing they want to talk about is how they dated a psycho.’
‘Look, we’ve all had a friend who’s dated a psycho. And then they come to their senses, the last thing they want to talk about is how they dated a psycho,’ the Real Time host said.
‘It took Trump voters a long time to make it all the way down the MAGA rabbit hole. To jump on them the second they poke their head out would ensure many more years of political winter.
‘Don’t do that, that will drive them right back into Trump’s arms.’
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Bill Maher, 66, warned liberals not to ‘humiliate Republican voters’ because they’ll go back down the ‘MAGA rabbit hole’ and straight into ‘Trump’s arms’
Maher warned against calling Republicans ‘stupid, racist s**t-kickers’ and instead try asking them ‘graciously’: ‘Hey, how you been? Welcome back to the wonderful world of reality.’
Maher even cited a DailyMail.com article about Democratic research recently showing that voters in swing districts were ‘preachy’ and ‘judgmental’ and told viewers not to do it.
Despite his warning to play nice, Maher highlighted Trump’s falling support, saying the ‘Trump fever is starting to break’ as rally attendance is down and his ‘press release brain farts’ don’t carry the same weight ‘as his tweets.’
Maher warned them not to humiliate them, despite Trump’s recent poll ratings dropping, decreasing 18 percent from October 2020 to January 2022. In 2020, 54 percent of Republicans were loyal to Trump over the party, but now only 36 percent are
‘You have to say it, maybe you aren’t it anymore,’ he said, after comparing Trump to Madonna’s hit ‘B**ch I’m Madonna.’
In October 2020, polls showed that 54 percent of Republicans were more loyal to Trump than to the Republican party, however, polls taken in January 2022 show that is more favored than Trump, jumping from 38 percent to 56. Maher did not cite where he got his data from, but it appears to be taken from January NBC poll, as verified by DailyMail.com.
‘This can’t all be coming from the raw, animal, magnetism of [Senate Republican Leader] Mitch McConnell,’ Maher joked.
The former president’s ‘star’ players have dropped in support, as well.
‘Men, people over 65, Jesus-freaks, and white guys who didn’t go college,’ Maher recounted. ‘That is a description of the very people who made him a star in politics’
Maher said that ‘Republicans without a college degree dropped 26 percent in support for Trump over the party, decreasing from 62 to 36 percent; conservatives dropped 21 points, from 59 to 38 percent; republican men dropped 18 points, from 53 to 35 percent; republicans over 65 dropped 23 points, from 55 to 32 percent; and ‘Jesus-freaks’ dropped 19 points from 55 to 36 percent.’ Maher did not cite where these numbers came from.
In a recent Associated Press survey, 44 percent of Republicans said they didn’t want Trump to run for President in 2024, despite the former’s president’s strong lean toward it.
‘Things feel like they’ve been shifting,’ Patrick Ruffini, a Republican pollster, told The New York Times in January.
‘It’s a strong attachment. It’s one that very likely would win a Republican primary today. But is it the same ironclad, monolithic, Soviet-like attachment that we saw when Donald Trump was the incumbent president? No, it is not.’
In 2020, 54 percent of Republicans were loyal to Trump over the party, but now only 36 percent are
In a little over a year, the numbers ‘flipped’ and now 56 percent of Republicans are loyal to the party. Maher also said that people who made Trump a ‘star in politics’ – ‘men, people over 65, Jesus-freaks, and white guys who didn’t go college’ – all decreased in support in a recent poll
Maher went on to say that ‘two-thirds of Republicans now even approve of Mike Pence certifying the electoral votes’ and that the QAnon ‘Shaman’ Jacob Chansley claimed he was ‘duped’ by Trump – although ‘the outfit, he has to own that himself.’
The Real Time host also brought up how both former VP Mike Pence and McConnell have gone against Trump and said he was ‘wrong.’
‘Something must be shifting, if gutless wonders, like Pence and McConnell, are daring to say out loud – finally – that the emperor has no clue,’ Maher said on Friday.
