Why I Want to Believe Bill Maher

It may not demand a leap of faith

HBO

In recent years, it’s no secret that Bill Maher has become a contentious figure. Once a lionized darling of the Left, he’s grown more a name for himself in recent years as one of their most vocal critics. Hearing some of his most scathing soundbites, it’s easy to believe that he’s been pulled into the MAGA wing.

Maher’s most recent controversy came when he was invited to the White House and spent a few hours with President Trump. Afterward, he reported that the time spent there was far more civil than he had anticipated, especially given Trump’s characteristic stream of negative tweets that preceded the meeting. On one hand, it’s hard for me to believe that our president could be doing what he is to our country and muster civility in any scenario — even for a moment. That a man ruled by such capricious whims could be anything close to rational.

Yet at the same time, it’s hard to believe that a president like Trump could exist to begin with. In every headline that emerges that reads more like satire than breaking news, we’re reminded of the reality TV personality in the White House. We’re reminded that a leader who was once too absurd for a South Park episode has become arguably the most powerful man in the world.

One of the reasons why I want to believe Bill Maher — why I may even reach to say that I do believe him — is because of how hard I’ve found it to grapple with our current predicament. I’ve spent so much of the past decade in perpetual disbelief that a man like Donald Trump could exist at all. That such a bumbling, feckless, impudent fool could rise to become president.

I’ve struggled to buy that he could be reelected.

In a way, believing what Bill Maher said of his time with Trump in private only demands me accepting that our current political moment is outrageous. That the way Trump presents is outlandish. That no man outside of a satire would publicly conduct himself in the way that he does, and that a schism could exist between the Trump we see in the public eye and the one behind closed doors.

To watch interviews of Trump in the 80s and 90s, he presents as a surprisingly thoughtful man (I know, it’s hard to grasp). Yet few signs then were apparent at all of the ranting, raving despot so many would come to know. It’s not all that hard for me to conceive that a sensible version of Trump may still exist, and that he’s found a strategic benefit to what he devolves into on camera.

Given the way that he’s weaponized media the past few years — the way he’s sucked up the oxygen of every network — I don’t think it takes a leap of faith to believe he’s found a repeated reason to behave outrageously. Even as the media has acknowledged fault in the way it approached Trump’s first four years in office, it’s fallen back into familiar patterns, scandalizing precisely the things that Republicans want scandalized.

As a result, the Trump administration is routinely given room to carry out their more nefarious undertakings over the weekends when there’s minimal press available to cover it. Sometimes it seems as though there’s a meticulous order behind the schedule of Trump’s most hair-raising tweets and damning public appearances.

The idea that Trump himself is an evil mastermind is still impossible for me to buy into. Some slips of the tongue are so ignominious I can’t imagine he’d want to be known for them. But other gaffes — other moments of invective and absurdity and fire and brimstone lunacy — I’ve come to believe may really be part of a carefully cultivated persona.

Even if the Trump we’ve grown to know this past decade is a facade, that doesn’t diminish the danger he poses, nor the damage of everything his administration is doing. But there’s some solace I’ve found in the possibility that there may not be a sociopathic monkey with a bazooka wielding our nuclear codes, but rather, a deeply unqualified, reality TV host who’s more intent on staying out of prison than actually effecting any of the Project 2025 agenda with which he’s become so closely associated.

And maybe that’s the strangest comfort of all.

Not that Trump is decent. Not that what he’s carrying out is okay for our country. But that the version of him we see — the one who throws late night tantrums on Truth Social and rants about sharks and windmills and Hannibal Lecter— isn’t the full man. That it’s a calculated construction designed to distract, enrage, and dominate the atmosphere. That there’s some strategy, however chaotic, behind the circus.

Believing Maher doesn’t require me thinking Trump is good. It’s about confronting the real possibility that theater is often mistaken for madness. And if that’s true, then at least we know the general form of what we’re facing off against. I expect that continuing to treat Trump like a rabid dog will do Democrats no good. He’s a showman and a survivalist, but may not be utterly beyond reason. His brash stupidity could be a mask, even if it’s one he’ll champion till the day he dies.

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