We all write about and think too much about Donald Trump, and he does represent a threat to liberals’ beliefs. But there is most certainly a line that needs be drawn as to the danger to both Trump and the nation if the assassination attempts continue or had been carried out. None of us really understands whether the attempts were due to political beliefs or just a desire to shatter the narrative, but whatever it is, it’s not even slightly funny. And yet, Bill Maher sounded correct, right up until he used the second attempt in a joke. Not funny, nor acceptable.
Before one really gets into why the attempts are so awful, there is the fact that Donald Trump, like all of us, is a human being and no one should be murdered, no one. If you can’t buy that, check out now because it is the central premise of any worthwhile discussion. There is more to it, though. And Maher attempted to address it during his monologue when audience members laughed. Then it gets complicated, as is seen in the video below. Originally, Maher said: “Let’s not bury the lede: the big story this week is they tried to shoot Trump again. It’s not —” Then as an audience member giggled loud enough for people to hear, Maher retorted immediately: “It’s not funny.” Okay, Maher is correct so far.
Breathtakingly, the audience began to laugh a little more when Maher addressed the subject again – only this time he had a quizzical look in his eye and the slightest bit of levity discernible and then says, appropriately:
“Ok. I’m being serious now this is the second time this has happened. I’ve said this before. There can be no fuzz on this. This is not funny, ok? It’s not ok. It’s not ok to wish it happened.”
Correct. And had he ended there it would have been fine, but it turned out to be “not fine” very quickly.
“This happens too frequently. This happened on the golf course. The guy was laying in wait. And this happens too much. In fact, besides the shooter, there were two other shooters beside him waiting to play through.”
Well, that is not fine. No matter how many times one says that this is serious, very serious, a joke at the end is horrific and transitions to dangerous. Not only is it not funny and dangerous, it goes against what this country fully stands for and the central premise of our founding. It is not compassionate toward humanity, obviously – but there is also the threat to our democracy and thus our nation.
To put it plainly, we cannot be a nation in which shooting at political leaders is in any way acceptable and thus funny. There are nations where such practices become normalized and one need only point to Venezuela, Colombia, or Russia – where opposition leaders are imprisoned and problematic people fall out of windows. The U.S. is set up with the premise that we are not like that.
But if we become a country filled with so much divisiveness and hate, we’re already failing to the point where we may well be over the cliff, already. We call Donald Trump a threat to democracy, and Project 2025 should send a shudder through everyone. This, along with the promise to be a dictator for “one day” – which is all he would need to sign 40 executive orders to put such a mechanism in place – give serious concern. But any attempt to kill one of our leaders sends us well past any notion that Trump represents a threat to democracy.
No, killing political leaders, and even worse – as the elections are on the calendar, makes us fascist in nature not from the would be assassin, but from the people that find it giggle-worthy. After all, one can always find two dozen insane people to make such attempts but there should not be any collective laughter from any type and especially not an audience at Bill Maher’s show. He is seen as an intellectual and thus his audience would well be, too.
One last threat to democracy. Trump is very popular with about half the nation, very popular. Imagine their reaction if it turned out these would-be assassins were politically motivated. We still don’t know, there is no evidence yet that this is so. But imagine if he were to be killed and then the response from Trump-supporters. They would be appropriately furious. That, too, represents a threat to the fabric of this country.
But this is sort of an unneeded breakdown. Everyone should viscerally understand that this isn’t funny. And no matter how many times Maher says it’s serious – which it obviously is – then to end with a joke, pulls the rug out of what he already said was serious. It becomes dangerous. He’s wrong, he’s wrong, he’s wrong. We can all hope that no other “comedians” follow this example. He is now dangerous.
Bill Maher chastises his audience for laughing at the 2nd Trump assassination attempt:
"Let's not buy the lede, the big story this week: They tried to shoot Trump again."
*Inappropriate laughter from Bill Maher audience*
"Not funny. Not okay to wish it happened."
*Inappropriate… pic.twitter.com/xiO35qhUkP— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) September 21, 2024
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Too true, good reminder about not leaving OUR civility at the door.
Well… normally I’d agree about civility and all that but trump has taken a wrecking ball to our collective civility over the past 9 years, and very purposefully and consciously at that putting a target on so many innocent peoples’ heads; as they say – “karma’s a bitch”. So as far as I’m concerned it’s “Que sera, sera”.
Came here to say this. I couldn’t agree more.
Trump was only shot at once.
Stop the nonsense
Oh stop with the fake outrage…
Trumps not a victim.
And let’s be clear, only one person attempted to assassinate Trump
maher is still on the boob tube? who knew? I figure he went out with the rest of the non-relevant trash. Whatever channel is giving him the air time probably ought to take a look at their bottom line because I doubt this fool is helping it.
I’m not sure that the unacceptable can’t be a premise for comedy; people often use humor to deal with tragedy. I mean, I don’t think it’s funny that Donald Trump has been the target of assassination attempts, but does that mean Bill Maher can’t make a joke about it? I don’t think so. All he’s doing is playing on the absurdity of it — and absurdity is the soul of comedy.
The night (or perhaps the night after) of JFK’s assassination, Lenny Bruce went on stage and started out by saying. “oof. Vaughan Meader”. Vaughan Meader was the comedian who made a killing playing JFK on the The First Family” recording and whose career died with Kennedy. Today, Bruce would tell the joke and then say “too soon?” Humor, even inappropriate humor, is a kind of free speech.
In any case, Maher’s pretended outrage was misinterpreted as real. Evidence being his rather good punch line to the set-up. (That is, the “playing through” joke.) One of the few times I found Maher amusing this, or any week.