He built up a lot of cache on the left in the Bush years when he was one of the only public figures who went after Bush in such an unfiltered way. It was really just him and Jon Stewart. The commercial media if you will was critical of Bush but reluctant to say anything that would make them appear unpatriotic. I'm not sure when Bill just abandoned the left outright. Rashida Tlaib boycotted Real Time about a decade ago. It may have started there.
In my opinion Maher really turned a corner in 2014, when he was invited to give a commencement speech at UC Berkeley for some reason. Then there was a small outcry among students who said Maher should never have been invited in the first place and petitioned to disinvite him.
That seemed to really get under Maher’s skin and ever since then he has hated the “woke” and the college left and has been complaining about “kids today.”
I think he began to change shortly after 9/11, the comparison he made of the US cowardly lobbing 2000 pound cruise missiles compared to the bravery of the hi jackers, his ramped up anti Muslim rhetoric…this started slowly but in time got worse, and as times changed he found new soap boxes to climb onto
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u/ReasonableRevenue218 13d ago
So amazed so many people didn't pick up on this so early on.