The protests against racism and police brutality that have been happening in Portland since the death of George Floyd have regularly moved beyond the streets of the Rose City and onto the national TV landscape. So far, in 2021, that focus appears to be continuing, with Fox News Channel hosts blasting “far-left riots” in Portland, and Friday’s “Real Time With Bill Maher” weighing in.
The HBO series features host Maher making jokes in his monologue about what’s in the news, followed by guests discussing current events with Maher during the panel segment. In Friday’s episode, Maher opened the show -- which currently doesn’t have a studio audience, in observance of coronavirus safety guidelines -- making wisecracks about Donald Trump no longer being president.
After joking about the “semi-peaceful” transfer of power, with Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, Maher observed that Trump supporters and adherents to QAnon conspiracy theories won’t be celebrating the Biden presidency.
“I think people are just basically unhappy in America,” Maher said. “Then they find political reasons why.” Maher then mentioned “antifa, the other side of it,” and how in Portland, groups took to the streets and “smashed windows after Biden was inaugurated.”
“They don’t like him, either,” Maher said. “I love Gen Z, they will binge watch 30 episodes of a TV show before it gets good, but they’ll only give Biden one day...They rioted when Trump was in office, now they’re rioting when Biden’s there. I think some people just don’t like windows.”
The conversation turned more serious once Maher introduced his guests, Kmele Foster and Peter Hamby. Foster cohosts the podcast, “The Fifth Column,” and was also featured on the now-canceled Fox Business Channel show, “The Independents,” a libertarian-oriented series hosted by Oregon native, Lisa “Kennedy” Montgomery, who currently hosts her own show, “Kennedy,” on Fox Business.
Hamby is host of the politically oriented Snapchat show, “Good Luck America,” and is a contributing writer for Vanity Fair.
During a discussion that included such issues as life in the post-Trump era, the role of race in American society, and the significance of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, Foster expressed concern at what he called an escalation of political violence on the left as well as the right.
“We saw days of civil unrest in the street,” Foster said. “We saw federal buildings surrounded, held under siege for days at a time,” he continued. “This is the United States of America and we have seen a steady increase in the regularity of political violence this country.”
Of protests by anarchist and anti-capitalist forces, Hamby said, “Going back to the Seattle WTO protest in 2000, I mean, there’s always been an anarchist, black bloc, gutter-punk element on the left.”
Foster said the current unrest is different. “We were promised armed rebellion at every state capital,” which, he said, “did not materialize.” Foster went on: “If we’re thinking, ‘It’s Trump, Trump is the problem,’ and as you mentioned already earlier in the show, Bill, we saw hundreds of people in the streets breaking windows after Biden won. Something is wrong, and I worry that we’re not talking about this in the right way.”
Maher agreed that there are larger issues facing the country than Trump’s influence. “Now that we’ve gotten rid of Trump, we’re faced with this problem as Americans,” adding, “Now we can’t blame everything on him.”
-- Kristi Turnquist
kturnquist@oregonian.com 503-221-8227 @Kristiturnquist
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January 24, 2021 at 04:29AM
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Portland ‘political violence’ among Bill Maher’s ‘Real Time’ post-Trump topics - OregonLive
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