Bill Maher Shows Us Why You Can’t Platform Fascists

On Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher invited the white nationalist Milo Yiannopoulos onto the show to discuss the recent string of deplatforming protests that have taken place over the past few months.

After the regular show aired, a segment called Overtime started and this is when we learned just how far liberalism had fallen.

Maher started off with a strong question about Milo’s doxing of a transgender woman on stage at the University of Wisconsin. Milo quickly started by calling the woman “he” and continued using male pronouns throughout the segment and defending his actions by saying he was only outing the student to “protect” women and children from this “confused” person.

Maher quickly replied that Milo’s protection of women and children was “not unreasonable” and turned to his other guest, Republican Rep. Jack Kingston to ask how he felt about “weirdos peeing.”

Maher, a self-proclaimed liberal, though he tends to dwell more in the libertarian realm, once again threw transgender men and women under the bus. His validation of Milo’s tactics and use of transphobic language really sealed the deal.

When Larry Wilmore, another guest on the show tried to hold Milo accountable, Milo shot back saying that trans people “disproportionately” accounted for the world’s sexual predators, Maher did nothing to combat this statement. Wilmore tried but to little avail. Milo said it was proven and Maher did nothing to counter.

This shows just why it is so important to combat speech like Milo’s by shutting it down. Liberals and free speech absolutists praised Maher for bringing Milo onto the show and challenging his ideas. Instead, he brought Milo on and let him espouse his ideas with little to no pushback.

Milo was given a massive HBO audience to spread his bigotry and the audience saw the host do nothing to counter it.

Yet, one would expect Maher to agree with Milo. It was Maher who, before the election, called trans issues “pet issues” and asked them to drop it in favor of electing Hillary Clinton.

When activists showed up at Berkeley and shut Milo down, they saved lives. They saved the students which Milo was set to out as immigrants and teach his audience to do the same. When Milo takes the stage, he causes damage to real lives.

His free speech is not violated, he can go yell in a field or at his computer. He has no right to a platform and anyone who wishes to give him one should be met with fierce resistance.

On Friday night, Milo spread his message loud and clear, and Maher confirmed it. This version of Maher’s liberalism, coupled with Milo’s white nationalism, labeled trans individuals as sexual predators and weirdos.

We must ensure there is no platform for fascists, on college campuses or on national television.