Bill Maher channeled what a lot of us are thinking on Friday’s “Real Time,” when during his “New Rules” segment, he called for the United States to adopt drastically shorter election seasons.
“Now that we’ve shown that it’s possible to begin a campaign for president just three months before the election, let’s always do that,” he began.
“They always say voters don’t pay attention until Labor Day. Well, then let’s start the election on Labor Day and end it on Election Day, when the Civil War starts. But I’ll get to that in a minute,” he continued.
Maher wondered, “What sentient person couldn’t cast their vote right now? Trump announced his run nearly two years ago. Did anyone say ‘Good, I need to hear more about this Donald Trump?’ If he can support forcing a woman to choose whether to have an abortion in six weeks, we can choose whether or not to abort him in 12.”
Maher pointed out how in most other elements of American society, people have short attention spans, and things tend to happen fast. “We have five-minute car washes, speed dating, 15-minute oil change, 20-minute facials. A 2005 survey found that vaginal sex typically lasts three to seven minutes, because we f–k like we eat,” Maher argued. “And yet we do elections like we’re f–king on cocaine.”
Maher then talked about the fears that trying to replace Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee “would cause chaos,” pointing to how the exact opposite happened when Kamala Harris stepped in, which set up a theory for why election seasons last so long.
“The next day, a grateful nation handed her $500 million. The only reason we stay stuck in permanent campaign mode is money. It’s estimated this year that $16 billion will be spent on political ads. It’s time we admit that the endless campaign exists only to enrich advertisers, political consultants and what’s left of the news media,” Maher said.
“The fact that we’re just getting to know Kamala isn’t bad. It’s great. Great for her, great for the country. People didn’t used to get sick of the candidates, because you barely ever saw them unless you happened to be standing at the back end of a train. But now we never stop seeing them. The winner in modern elections comes down to who we’re less tired of,” Maher continued, adding later, “I don’t get it. Everything in the modern world moves so fast, except politics. It’s the one exception. Well, politics and streaming series.”
We feel your pain re: streaming series, Bill.
This brought Maher back to his earlier allusion to civil war.
“Why the hell do we still need a ridiculous 11-week period between election and inauguration?” he asked. “It made sense in the old days, when it took that long to get from Illinois to Washington by horse, but we have planes now. We don’t have to strap William Howard Taft to a buckboard and wheel his ass in from Ohio.”
“We talk of the intermission between election and inauguration as a transition period, like that’s good and it makes us mature. It’s not. It’s a fetid swamp, which breeds nothing but mischief. When other countries vote out their politicians, they throw their clothes right out on the front lawn faster than they can say ‘bye bye, loser.’ You kids, you don’t get three months to sit there and think about rioting. Where else in life does this ever happen, where a person gets terminated and they just let you stay on for a couple of months?”
Maher approached the conclusion of the segment by listing multiple countries with much shorter election cycles. “They all manage to wrap up an election in the same amount of time that it takes a 90 Day Fiancé to say, sure, I’ll f–k a fat guy for a green card.”
“If TLC can do ’90 Day Fiancé,’ we can do ’90 Day Commander-in-Chief.’ Because at this point, I feel like Melania in the bedroom: I just want to get whatever’s going to happen over with.”
Watch the whole thing below:
Leave a Reply