During a recent episode of the Club Random Podcast featuring Dr. Debra Soh, Bill Maher made remarks about why he believes figures like Joe Rogan and Elon Musk have shifted toward conservatism, arguing they were pushed there rather than drawn there willingly.
The conversation arose from a discussion about the far left’s tendency to dismiss anyone who refuses to fall in line with progressive orthodoxy. Maher, who has long positioned himself as a liberal willing to criticize his own side, expressed frustration with being lumped in with conservatives simply for holding views grounded in science and common sense.
“I’ve said this before, like they’ve driven a lot of people like Joe Rogan and Elon Musk, people who are not conservative people, who are actually liberal heroes for a long time,” Maher said. “They’ve driven them into the conservative side because they were so like unacceptably not super woke, just because they wouldn’t go along with the nonsense.”
Maher made clear he sees himself in the same position, refusing to be pushed in either direction.
“They’re not going to do it to me,” he said. “I don’t think they’re going to do it to you. You know, you’re not going to get me onto your side, but you know what? You’re not going to stop me from calling you out when you’re crazy. Because there is a lot of crazy.”
Soh, who has faced her own criticism from progressive media for her writing on gender and biology, agreed that the tactic of labeling moderate voices as right-wing makes it easier for ideological opponents to dismiss legitimate arguments entirely.
Maher acknowledged the media dynamic that follows, noting that when people get shut out by left-leaning outlets, they end up on conservative ones by default.
“The only ones that’ll have you when you get ostracized by the st**id woke of the very far left are the conservative outlets,” he said. “So you have to do Fox News and then they say, ‘Oh, she’s a right-winger. Look at her. She’s on Fox News.’ Yeah, cuz you wouldn’t have me, right? Isn’t that the game they play?”
Maher also reflected on his own unwillingness to be bought off or incentivized into softening his positions, pointing to his criticism of Donald Trump as an example. “You cannot bribe me and you cannot incentivize me,” he said.
For Maher, the whole pattern comes down to a fundamental unwillingness to surrender honest thought to political convenience. “It’s so liberating not to have to check what your opinion is supposed to be,” he said, adding that the people who cannot tolerate that approach were never worth holding onto anyway.
