Bill Maher lectured his viewers about “ageism” on Friday’s “Real Time” when he realized the Democratic party is not considering California governor Jerry Brown for the presidency, despite making the state the leader in job creation in the United States during his last term.
“That accomplishment in this giant state would have Democrats hyping him for president, but they’re not, because he’s 76, and ageism is the last acceptable prejudice in America. Well, that and Asian drivers,” Maher said. “Only in America is age more important than the fact that Jerry Brown took a broken state and fixed it. And he did it in his 70s.”
The prejudice doesn’t just affect politicians, he argued, and cited CNN’s decision to replace Larry King with Piers Morgan, whose show got cancelled earlier this year.
“Four years ago CNN replaced Larry King with the man who disproved the adage that all English people are smart,” Maher said. “And Larry wasn’t let go because he got worse at what he did. He does a web show now and he’s exactly the same, i.e. better than the rest of the news folk on TV.”
Maher said “age is always relative,” and pointed to a few examples that are hard to argue with.
“Jane Fonda looks like she’s 40. And Lorde, looks like she’s 40,” Maher joked. Diana Nyad was 64 when she swam from Cuba to Florida. Lindsay Lohan is 28 and can’t make it across the room. Tony Bennett is 88, and Lady Gaga is using him to seem relevant.”
Ultimately, Maher concluded that American culture has become shallow, and no longer respects the elderly. Instead, the young are prized, and entirely to fixated on the human butt.
“It’s an ass. It’s been around for centuries. Dogs aren’t this fixated on it,” Maher complained. “But half of our music, and all of our dancing is just about worshiping, praising, staring at, and waxing poetic about the human ass. Millennials should be called generation ass. I’m telling you, these kids are hooked on crack.”
“You can have it all, but not governing,” Maher concluded. “78 should not be too old to be president. Wisdom isn’t something you can just Google. And governing is where we need wisdom.”