Bill Maher’s ‘Real Time’ Explores The “Freedom Convoy” Awakening And Whoopi Goldberg’s Exile

Bruce Haring
·5 min read
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Bill Maher’s Real Time on HBO this Friday was about waking up to various scenarios and recognizing the hypocrisy around us.

Throughout the show, Maher and guests explored why we don’t take to the streets more to right the wrongs of society. While nothing was decided, ultimately the show is a sign that the narratives of the mainstream media are starting to break down, as more people – most prominently, the truckers in Canada currently in a major blockcade, with more such actions anticipated – decide that they won’t accept the views and dictates of their rulers, owners, leaders or editorializers.

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Maher started off the night with a one-on-one interview with Ricky Williams, the former NFL running back and entrepreneur who recently founded the sports-themed weed brand “Highsman.” Williams famously spent a year away from the NFL because of his marijuana use.

“When I entered the NFL, that’s when the nightmare started,” Williams said. He loved the game – but the pounding still gives him PTSD when he watches, and he couldn’t understand why he couldn’t treat himself with the marijuana that gave him more relief than the painkillers the league wanted him to take.

Williams realized that there was more to life than football in his year off, and said that being known for something other than the game was important. Given that, he wondered why Colin Kaepernick wanted back in the league, given that “He’s made a name for himself beyond anything he could have done in football. Why does he want to go back? He’s doing a lot of cool things.”

The panel discussion that followed also questioned authority. Maher’s guests were Vivek Ramaswamy, biotech entrepreneur and author of Woke Inc: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam, and Marianne Williamson, political activist, blogger for Substack’s “TRANSFORM with Marianne Williamson,” and host of “The Marianne Williamson Podcast.”

The conversation started off with a talk about the Canadian “Freedom Convoy” and trucker protest. “People are understanding it’s something more than a protest about the vaccine mandate,” said Maher.

Ramaswamy agreed wholeheartedly. “If you think it’s about vaccine mandate or white supremacy, you’re missing the point,” he said. “It’s rising against the biggest threat to actual demoracy, the rise of this managerial class,” which he contended was a combination of government. media and big business that was “crushing the will of the people.”

Williamson was a little less enthusiastic about what’s going on in Canada. “Protest is inherently disruptive. But when does disruption become harm?” she asked. But she pointed out that the protest was peaceful, and that the truckers were not attacking the capital building in Ottawa. “My point is there’s no violence in what they’re doing. In a way, we get to see that this can be done that does not bring violence with it.”

Maher decried the classism that demonizes the truckers who bring the things to market that allow a certain group of people to work from home. He was against that “We’re all in this together” motto that the US government is pushing. “No, we’re not.” He pointed out that it’s elitist to be against the people who can’t work from home.

Ramaswamy, said the current group of protesters “is also a group of people that have been excluded by the elites. He urged leaders “to listen” to the complaints rather than make threats.

Maher underlined that point when he dredged up past comments by Canada leader Justin Trudeau, who channeled Marie Antoinette when he asked publicly whether protesters should be tolerated and said “They take up space.” Maher shook his head. “Now you do sound like Hitler,” Maher said.

The panel generally agreed that when govenment and corporate interests align too closely, the result is fascism. “We need more social distancing between capitalism and democracy,” Ramaswamy said.

Maher concluded the night with an editorial about how Americans confuse the concept of karma with revenge. He mentioned he had received many emails and calls from people rejoicing that Whoopi Goldeberg was sitting out The View as punishment for remarks on the Holocaust.

Karma is “not a system of reward and punishment,” Maher said. “That’s Catholicism.” He said that Americans tend to turn the concept of karma into “something bitter and nasty,” citing two examples: “Ellen was mean to her staffers, and then she lost her show,” and “You voted for Trump, and then have Covid.”

“We took something gentle, kind, and hopeful and turned it into a Tarantino movie.” he said. “Someone did you wrong, then sometime later, something bad happened to them..” He added, “If you keep living, some bad things will happen.”

“People have to learn to disagree in this country and not hate for it,” he concluded. “Whoopi said I was flippant and immoral for (being in favor of) chucking the masks,” pointing out that many US states and foreign countries agreed with his stance. “That’s okay. She’s allowed to be wrong. It’s 11 am, who can think clearly at that hour? I’m still in REM sleep.”

He wrapped up by repeating a call for tolerance that he made last week on the show.

“Whoopi should’t apologize for her views on race, as much as I disagree, and have to sit out like a child and think about what she did,” he said. He added that doing that on The View is “like firing Pat Sajak for selling a vowel. We have to get past this zero-tolerance mindset. The right response to speech you don’t like is more speech.”

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