In response to critics who have called out Bill Maher for abandoning his libertarian views, the comedian blamed the movement itself for his change of heart.
“To everyone who keeps trying to shame me about abandoning my Libertarian moorings, my message is this: I didn’t go nuts,” he said on his show Friday. “This movement did.”
The ‘Real Time with Bill Maher‘ host spent the final portion of his show lambasting libertarians for “ruining” their own movement.
“Somewhere along the way, libertarianism morphed into this creepy obsession with free market capitalism, based on a Ayn Rand novel called ‘Atlas Shrugged‘ — a book that’s never been read all the way through by anyone with a girlfriend,” he said.
Maher argued ‘Atlas Shrugged’ and its concepts are only appropriate for young people, but that at some point, one outgrows them — except for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.).
“Now I know conservatives are saying, ‘Come on, Bill. You’re not really implying that the most influential minds in the Republican party are intellectually stuck in their teen years,'” Maher said, before adding, “No, of course not. I don’t know where I’d get that idea.” The screen then showed one of Ryan’s infamous workout photos, to the delight of the audience.
The comedian accused libertarians of obsessively avoiding the “nanny state,” to the risk of their own health and safety.
“When you see a stop light, your reaction should be ‘Great, an easy way to ensure we don’t all crash into each other,’ not, ‘How dare the government tell me when I can and cannot go!'” he said.
And while Maher admitted he still holds some libertarian beliefs, the current state of the movement just goes much too far for his liking.
Watch Maher’s monologue below:
