On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher said that “most immigrants still want to assimilate, but some now have this other attitude” of opposing assimilation.
During his “New Rules” segment at the end of the show, Maher said, “And finally, new rule: If you want the American Dream, you have to take the American values. There’s no bigger issue in electoral politics these days than immigration. And there’s no doubt, at least in my mind, that both sides went to extremes, Biden’s policy of open doors, and then Trump’s policy of broken windows. Now I’m on the page of America doing what it used to do so well, stealing hard-working, talented immigrants from around the world and making them Americans. But something has changed in the equation. Now most immigrants still want to assimilate, but some now have this other attitude of melting pot? F*ck you, you melt.”
He continued, “Look, you don’t have to love everything about America, we don’t. That’s why Yelp was invented. But if you do get past ICE, America’s actually pretty cool. We say you do you, eat the food your grandma cooked, speak another language at home, celebrate religious holidays. We welcome your food, your art, your fashion, your first ladies. But you have to answer one question: Do you like Western civilization? Because that’s what we are, and that’s not negotiable.”
Maher then cited gay rights as an example of nonnegotiable values and pointed to a gay cruise ship being denied the ability to dock in Turkey and Egypt. He then said, “Egypt and Turkey, they have no problem saying, our culture, we just don’t do that here. We need a little of that attitude here. How about homophobia, we just don’t do that here?” He also pointed to Western values on the treatment of women and relationships and said, “And it’s not negotiable and it’s not white values. These are liberal values. … And it’s not racist to say, if you want to come here to help form a more perfect union, great, but some things are too fundamental to change, the separation of religion and state, for example. And I would say the same thing to Christian nationalists.”
Maher further stated, “This has nothing to do with non-whites becoming the majority. I don’t give a shit about that, I don’t give a shit about colors. White people, they’re white, they’re not pandas. I care about liberal values being replaced by illiberal ones.”
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