Unreal Time with Bill Maher

 I like to hate-watch Bill Maher. That's probably half his audience. For me the positive attraction was always that he has interesting guests most of the time, and you just had to suffer through his bullshit to see what interesting takes a celebrity or Harvard economics professor has about current events. It's sometimes good TV. Except for last night.

He opened the show with a retelling of his recent dinner with Trump. He chose to sell it, not as a summit meeting between two bitter adversaries, but rather as a couple of guys sitting at the dinner table just talking- without arguing or name-calling, as one would expect with two entertainment titans like Maher and Trump. And, evidently, the takeaway we were supposed to get was, if those two could do it, we could all do it. And then we'd be as awesome as Bill is.

This fvcking guy!

Oh shit- you mean that Trump can sit down for dinner without cameras rolling and we get the real Trump who just so happens to be affable, and self-effacing almost even, and can take a joke? And there's no threats and awkwardly dancing to a gay anthem? He's not mean or evil like he is on TV. Holy forkballs! Should we like this guy now? 

You'd think that a guy who has spent nearly 50 years in show business- much of them interviewing celebrities- might be able to discern actors from their roles.

You'd be wrong. Maher bought it. He's really thoughtful, nice guy- not at all like his public persona...

Trump is a brand, a schtick. An act. Duh! It's no surprise that actors aren't in character all the time, so no surprise that Trump isn't performing all the time either. Few can sustain that 24 and 7 because, they know the difference between a role and reality. Even Trump knows that, and he IS the ignorant idiot most of us see. In person, without cameras rolling, he's just quieter about it. 

I've never met Trump, but I've known my share of malignant narcissists and generally phony-baloney people. There's a lot to value in a cold read of someone. The older you get, the more people you've known, the more you have seen the recycling of people in life. Same persona, different face. While there may not have been a guy exactly like Trump in politics before, we have seen Trump on used car lots and comedy stages. He's an act. It works for him. Goddamn, he's president again! It works! Why hasn't anyone done this before?! Sofa king brilliant!

I don't want to get too far off track, but if you think about it, he was the only republican who could come close enough to Hillary Clinton in 2016 to cheat to win. Whatever Russia did, it would not have worked on candidates' Bush, Cruz or Rubio. No one would believe an Electoral College victory from one of them. But this odd, populist outlier Trump, who vowed to drain the swamp and make America great again- that's a plot twist that works! And twice it did. There probably were electoral shenanigans again but, this country has its faults and one of them is the Electoral College. The very system that supposedly protects us from guys like Trump, twice gave us Trump. 

In a lot of ways, Trump and Maher are the same guy. Both are narcissists and neither minds getting over-the-top, early and often. They believe people expect it of them and love them for it. Both believe they tell it like it is and desperately want others to believe that as well. EVERYBODY tells it like it is! I'm telling you like it is right now! Well, how I think it is. Your mileage may vary. 

Interesting that we get a reasonably sober Bill Maher on Friday nights on HBO, but if you check out his podcast you get a very drunk and disorderly Bill, as he is openly smoking weed and drinking throughout those programs. Is that the real Bill, like Trump was the real Trump at that dinner? I don't know. All I know is that I don't like any version of either performer.