New Rule: America Is Ours | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

[00:00:00]And finally, new rule. Everybody has to start getting a little more excited for America's birthday. Come on. Our big 250 is coming up. It's on July 4th for the kids in our public school.

[00:00:13]And I think that's a pretty big deal.

[00:00:16]Problem is, there's kind of a stink on it because you know who is president right now. So the left half of the country fears he'll make the anniversary about him. Of course he will.

[00:00:28]I even bet that on Khi.

[00:00:31]The question is whether we all will help him do it. We shouldn't. This is about America. He isn't America. He's the temporary caretaker of America.

[00:00:41]America's employee.

[00:00:48]And the message should be that America isn't actually his and that no one's side gets to own being psyched about the country. So, I'm not down with this attitude of, "Well, we're having a party, but if Trump's going, I'm not.

[00:01:03]That's so high school. It should be in the Epstein files.

[00:01:14]Go to the party. It's a big celebration.

[00:01:16]You probably won't run into him.

[00:01:20]This country is 3.8 million square miles, and that's without Greenland.

[00:01:26]Look, I'm not saying Trump doesn't want to muddy the distinction between himself and the country. He is sure as does. That's what wannabe authoritarians do. They try to blur that line. Don't be an accomplice. Especially since, for all of Trump's nonsense, America is still here. Still incredibly prosperous by world standards. Still the place people want to get to. still free enough to let me put the word nonsense next to the president's name.

[00:02:02]You know, you do know it's not that way everywhere. Now, am I worried about creeping authoritarianism and attacks on free speech and politicizing the Justice Department and enemies lists? Yes, as I have been since 2016 when I first used the term slowmoving coup. But we're 10 years on now. And while Trump wanting to act like a king in many ways is still a story, so is the fact that he's also been checked. In 2020, he became the first president to flat out not concede losing an election, as I predicted. And yet he didn't stay president either. In cases where a court has ruled for Trump or the plaintiff, Trump is winning less than one out of 10. Even the pliant Supreme Court checked him on tariffs. A court made him take his name off the Kennedy Center and he didn't fight it.

[00:03:03]10 more days. 10 more days, please.

[00:03:09]Here's the budget. Here's the budget cuts to key departments. Trump wanted in his second term. And here's what actually happened. Almost no change.

[00:03:19]Congress didn't go along. America may right now be the country Donald Trump is president of, but America is also everything that keeps Trump from being the king he wishes he were.

[00:03:32]So, so this Fourth of July, let's celebrate the genius American idea of checks and balances, which yes, is threatened and yes, is taking on water, but is still afloat. Like those tall ships I remember from 1976. Oh yes, I remember. I was 20 and I wore a bicentennial t-shirt that whole summer.

[00:04:07]>> Yeah, man.

[00:04:10]I wore it every day and nobody thought it meant that I love Nixon >> because 50 years ago, liberals didn't concede patriotism.

[00:04:19]Abby Hoffman was the quintessential 60s radical. And when he had to appear before the House on American Activities Committee, he wore an American flag shirt, which some cops later ripped off his back. Because the message that most threatens authoritarians isn't America sucks. It's America is ours, too.

[00:04:48]Every election year, Democrats seem to remember patriotism for about an hour at their convention when they're trying to win back swing voters. The whole message of Kamla's speech in 2024 was take back the flag. That's why she talked about America like a pageant contestant.

[00:05:06]The greatest privilege on earth.

[00:05:11]The privilege AND PRIDE OF BEING AN AMERICAN.

[00:05:16]>> Hard to believe she lost, huh?

[00:05:21]Well, you can't take back the flag in an hour if the rest of the time you treat patriotism as something vaguely embarrassing. It shouldn't be. Even though we are far from perfect. You know, in 1976 when I was wearing that t-shirt with my nut hugger shorts, America wasn't exactly crushing it then either. Inflation was around 6%.

[00:05:49]Mortgage rates were almost nine. There was actually a thing called the misery index. The average person earned far less than they do today. They had a smaller house and watched a tiny TV that had three channels, mostly I Love Lucy reruns.

[00:06:06]The closest thing we had to Euphoria was Thre's Company.

[00:06:18]Our AI was cliffnotes.

[00:06:23]Women had just won the right to get a credit card without their husband signing off on it. And there were no women on the Supreme Court and only 19 in Congress. Infant mortality was three times higher. And we had just been through Vietnam and Watergate for which President Ford pardoned Nixon before pardoning crooks was cool.

[00:06:46]You think filling up your tank is a headache now? Back then, being online meant you were waiting for gas.

[00:06:59]Everything had lead in it, which up kids' brains even worse than Tik Tok.

[00:07:05]People smoked inside planes, and drunk driving was considered driving.

[00:07:13]I love it.

[00:07:14]>> The hot car that year was the Pinto because it was on fire.

[00:07:25]And since there wasn't any internet porn yet, if you wanted something to masturbate to for free, you had to wait for a streaker.

[00:07:40]LA had smog days. Buildings had esbestos. Radio had disco duck.

[00:07:49]Things were bad, man. So bad I was forced to sell everyone drugs just to cheer them up.

[00:07:56]>> And yet, and yet it didn't stop us from making 1976 one big P. Diddy freak off for America.

[00:08:08]Because ask Joe Biden, you only turn 200 once.

[00:08:12]>> So So come on, it's the fourth. Don't let this year's fourth become another excuse for partisan sulking. Let it be an excuse to be really hung over on the fifth.