A man who laughs at your jokes? One who takes an interest in your life? What more could a girl want?
Or, in this case, Bill Maher.
The longtime outspoken critic of Trump shared an account of his dinner earlier this month with the commander-in-chief, describing him as “gracious and measured,” and “much more self-aware than he lets on in public.”
“I’m taking it as a positive that this person exists because everything I’ve ever not liked about him was — I swear to God — absent, at least on this night with this guy,” he said of the evening.
I hate to break it to Maher, but he seems to be on the cusp of a textbook situationship. He notes that he felt “comfortable” talking to Trump, who told him he thought he was smart, asked for his opinion, and gave a supposed “willingness to listen.”
Yeah, he might have revoked the visas of over 1,500 international students, but he changed his mind so it’s OK. So what if he caused you extreme anxiety and made you upend your entire life to suit his interests? He’s learning from his mistakes and he’s really working on himself this time. He only seems like he’s crazy to everyone else … but I promise, he’s nice to me.
Maher still notes that he doesn’t “have a good feeling,” and he “will be critical about a lot of what he’s doing.”
Have you ever vented to your friends about someone you were seeing because something they were doing fundamentally didn’t work for you? Maybe they never text you first to make plans or they only want to see you late at night after half a bottle of tequila.
Or maybe they issue mass deportations and try to upend global trade.
Whatever your vice, we’ve all complained and we’ve all made excuses because, taking a page from Maher’s book, they were different that one time and now you know that deep down they may actually be a good person who cares about you.
Maybe they’ll even admit to their mistakes — or at least offer excuses. Perhaps the deportation of an innocent immigrant to a maximum-security prison without any legal proceeding really was an “administrative error.” Perhaps it really is out of his control and there’s nothing he can do about it now. But the good news is he’s finally communicating. He’s making sure that you’re clear on what he means and that’s a step in the right direction…right?
A similar logic seems to have guided Maher to the dinner table. Yes, we should talk to each other. We should make an effort to hear the other side.
But in the end, Trump controls the narrative. Instead of a big bouquet of flowers to show you how much he cares, he orders a “National Garden of American Heroes” with your favorite icons like Harriet Tubman and Kobe Bryant to show you how much he really does understand you. Ignore the fact that it’s done under an order of historical revisionism, further funded by grants that would otherwise support much needed arts and culture programming.
Weeks after the dinner, Maher released a new episode of his show entitled “Flirting with Fascism” in which he reverts back to his typical criticism of Trump. “Flirting with authoritarianism doesn’t stay flirting,” he said of Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election.
Maher, like the rest of us attempting to navigate the perilous world of dating — I mean, politics — makes the observation that “humans cannot be trusted to ‘just flirt’ with other attractive humans, and the MAGA crowd cannot be trusted to flirt with dictatorship. Not everyone who flirts cheats, but all cheating starts with flirting.”
Putin may be Trump’s work wife, but Maher is his latest Hinge date.
The tricky thing about a situationship is you never know if you’re in it for the short term or the long term. In the short term, you may find yourself emotionally charged with a lack of any structure or intention to move forward in any real way. We get used to the chaos and cling to glimmers of hope driven by false promises. This is where many people are right now.
We keep showing up, checking the news each day, and waiting for a text back that reciprocates our efforts. We’re seduced into thinking that this might still be the relationship we believe it can be, that this is democracy just going through a rough patch.
The sooner we recognize that this is not normal, the sooner we can break out of the loop. We need to get to the root causes of Trumpism and ensure we never let them back in.
Don’t forget, the goal is to save your sense of self (democracy, in America’s case). You can’t force someone into something they aren’t ready for. You can’t cling to false hope and wait for them to realize the impact of their actions.
It’s time to realize that Trump has no intention of putting America first, so we have to do it for ourselves.
Sorry, Maher. But don’t worry, we’ve all been there.