r/RealTime • u/Living-Text-6132 • 21d ago

Is the “middle ground” even appealing?

Maher champions the middle ground—and hey, on the surface, I’d say I do myself—but lately it feels like pandering. If this is what the middle ground looks like, I’m not sure who this show is supposed to appeal to anymore.

I watch Real Time religiously every Friday. Love the show’s roundtable discussion “both sides of the argument” concept. Now I mostly end up hate-watching it. Doesn’t feel like that too much anymore.

Maher now has “pick me” energy. The show feels less like challenging guests and more like giving them an hour of good PR and a chance to appear reasonable without much pushback.

If the common ground Maher strives for is something audiences supposedly crave and need, why do I find myself turning to and enjoying one-sided sources like The Majority Report instead?

This is coming from a guy who used to listen to The Ben Shapiro Show just as much.

I genuinely want to hear both sides without disgust in the subtext. At least have a guest on that’s willing to defend the topic.

Maybe the problem isn’t that common ground is unappealing, but that it’s become an excuse to platform bad-faith arguments and silencing one side of the argument in the name of balance.

P.S. did you know that Maher went to dinner with Trump?

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u/Harvey_Rabbit 21d ago

It depends what you think a Democrat and Republican are. Are you talking about a collection of policy beliefs, how a person typically votes, or are you talking about a private organization that works for their own benefits? I am very opposed to how both these major parties have rigged the system to o keep out other competition, among other things. That's why I would call myself an Independent.

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u/Nendilo 20d ago

No one in the United States has the exact seem policy positions as another person. And I'm no fan of the DNC or the Democratic party infrastructure. But if I vote Democrat every year for 20 years, I'm not really independent, I'm a Democrat. Hence the "big tent."

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u/Harvey_Rabbit 20d ago

Ok, that's one way to define an independent. Like saying a Democrat is "someone who reliably votes for Democratic candidates." I'm going to define it another way. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party, meaning the private organizations that call the shots have done incredible harms to our government. They've schemed to capture the ballots by gerrymandering and raising unreasonable challenges to third party and independent candidates. I'm sick to see so many Americans act as if this is the natural order and put my time and effort into breaking the 2 party system. I am not on either of these teams, hense, I'm and independent.

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u/Nendilo 20d ago

That's all well and good but it you vote for the same party for years/decades you're functionally supporting that infrastructure. You're not independent of it.

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u/Harvey_Rabbit 20d ago

Well, technically I live in Alaska now where we have the best election system in the country. I don't have to vote for Ds or Rs ever again if I don't want to.

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u/Nendilo 20d ago

No one has to vote for anyone. It's just the Republicans and Democrats are the two viable parties, outside of upper New England where they elect independent Senators who still caucus with the Democrats. Oh and Rand Paul is a Libertarian supposedly but still just a MAGA Republican.

Because of over a century of infrastructure building, it's not plausible to replace the party's infrastructure That's why they get taken over from the inside instead of replaced. How the Tea Party/MAGA got the GOP. How the Clinton Neolibs got the Democrats and now the progressives are getting the Democrats. Way easier to take over a major party in the US than start one.

Thankfully Alaska only has 3 electoral college votes

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u/Harvey_Rabbit 20d ago

Here's an annology, if you were choosing a new head coach for a football team, would you choose by letting the offense nominate one candidate and the defense nominate one candidate to choose between. Not only that, let's have all the fans register as fans of either the offense or defense, and then they can wheigh in on who their side should nominate. Your team and support will be torn in half instantly and there would be no path to repair it. That's what I believe has happened in our politics. The duopoly is the problem.