OK here's my take, as mentioned earlier I thought it was crap.
I'm too lazy to go bit by bit through the entire video to state my objections to everything (there are a lot), but I'll just focus on the section in the middle where he chose 3 illustrative stories that he says people see on their newsfeeds that make them think "these people are nuts." It turns out that if you actually look into the stories at all, the people are not nuts at all. It seems to me that Maher inadvertently pointed out that the actual problem is a right wing media machine pumping out false narratives to a public that's been conditioned for years to believe this crap is true and that's too lazy to read past a headline.
Here were the three stories:
1) The first was the story about Anne Hathaway's new movie "The Witches." Maher says that Hathaway apologized last week because the character has three fingers on each hand and that was offensive to people with limb differences. And he was mocking the whole time with air quotes around limb differences and eye rolls and sighing.
Well as far as I'm concerned when I read the story it's a positive story about people learning and being nice to each other. It turns out there's a real disorder that isn't all that uncommon where people have three fingers on their hands. And this is a kids movie. And the scary witch has the same hands they do. And there's nobody else portrayed in media that has three fingers. So maybe that's a little upsetting to kids who have this condition. And some disability advocates made their objections known.
Well Anne Hathawy read about the backlash, said she didn't even know about this condition, and issued an apology. In part it said "[l]et me begin by saying I do my best to be sensitive to the feelings and experiences of others not out of some scrambling PC fear, but because not hurting others seems like a basic level of decency we should all be striving for." That seems like a pretty decent thing to do. Then as part of her apology she tweeted out the name of a charity that helps children with limb disorders. She wasn't forced to apologize by anybody. She did it because that's what a decent person SHOULD do when they inadvertently hurt the feelings of a bunch of little kids. And wait, now Democrats are responsible for whatver Anne Hathaway does?
The only way to make this story about how Democrats need to do things differently is by omitting all the important contextual information and adding in eye rolls and sighs instead and then pointing at a squirrel.
Anne Hathaway story
2) OK, the second story is about the Arizona Coyotes draft pick who they dumped. Maher describes it as "he bullied a disabled kid in 8th grade." And then Maher criticizes "liberals" for going after people for what they did in middle school.
But again, that's not even close to a complete or accurate story. I'm not a hockey fan so I had to look it up but the guy beat on this kid for years and called him the N word and made him lick candy from the urinal. It was so bad he actually was arrested and convicted -- how much bullying actually rises to that level? And Maher talking about "8th Grade!" is ridiculous, he just graduated high school this year it was only a few years ago. But most of all, how is this the fault of the liberals? This is what makes people vote for Democrats? Isn't the conservative position that businesses should be able to hire and fire whoever they want? Maybe a professional hockey team would prefer not to pay a sadistic racist jerk millions of dollars to be the face of their franchise? Why should they be forced to?
Again, the only way to make this story about how Democrats need to do things differently is by omitting all the important contextual information and then also pretending somehow that Democrats own a hockey team.
Coyotes draft pick story
3) The last story is about how Mario Lopez from Access Hollywood went on a podcast and said it was ridiculous for parents to let three year old kids pick their gender identity. NBC News then had a meeting to decide if he should be fired (he wasn't). Lopez issued an apology. Maher describes this all as off-putting because most Americans agree with Lopez.
But again Maher tells a very selective story. Even though it might be true that lots of Americans agree with Lopez, the people that disagree with Lopez include the overwhelming majority of people who actually treat and help transgender youth, including organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics. Those experts state in fact that Lopez's position on this issue is harmful to children.
And all NBC apparently did was have a meeting. Because of course they should have a meeting. They can't afford to lose viewers because the hosts of these dumb entertainment shows go on podcasts and spout controversial political opinions. I suspect they also would have had a meeting if he had said "defund the police" on the podcast.
So again, entertainment host goes on show, spouts an uninformed and controversial opinion. As a result, his employer has a discussion about whether he should be fired but chooses not to. And the host learns something about the issue and apologizes. Why is this bad? Why is this making people vote against Democrats?
The reason is because people aren't hearing the whole story. They're hearing a selectively edited version of the story designed to stir up outrage and actually diminish understanding of others. And Maher is guilty here in the same way as the right wing media often is.
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In my experience I often find "common sense" to be a nice way of saying "I have only a rudimentary understanding and don't want to make any effort to understand nuances." The less informed and attentive our citizenry is, the more that "common sense" will diverge from actual good policy. Maher actually somehow misses this point, despite the fact that he jokes about how Democrats come across as not having common sense --- to people that believe in Q-Anon! It seems to me that joke completely destroys his entire argument. Maybe we shouldn't be appealing to these people's common sense at all.
And I guess that's my broader criticism of Maher's critique. To the extent that the criticisms are about language or marketing ideas, whatever, that's not a particularly novel observation. But Maher's criticisms go beyond just how Democrats should market themselves, they go towards how Democrats should act on issues in which, I happen to think Democrats are actually on the right side and will ultimately be successful. It takes time to change minds, and really that's the long term goal. Maher says "it would be so easy to win elections if we just drop this ####," but at some point it's not just about winning elections, it's about fighting for the right things and taking honorable stances even when they're unpopular.
Thank you.
