Maher: Telling People Not to Protest Police or Question Generals ‘Is Not American’

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher slammed “fetish patriotism” and argued those who “wrap themselves in the flag are always the ones most clueless about what it represents.”

Maher began by saying, “Someone must tell me why the people who wrap themselves in the flag are always the ones most clueless about what it represents. Like the way Trump turned a respectful protest about police brutality into a patriotism pissing match. The nerve of these young black men kneeling while an ‘American Idol’ runner-up sings the ‘bombs bursting in air’ song. How dare you exercise your freedoms while we’re honoring them? We will not stand for not standing. Trump literally said that soldiers have died and we need to stand because ‘They were fighting for our national anthem.’ Oh for f*ck’s sake, no one ever died for the anthem.”

He concluded, after citing the White House saying that it was “highly inappropriate” to debate White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly “That’s right, it is ‘highly inappropriate’ to ever question a general. Which it is, in North Korea. But I thought this was America. This impulse to tell people not to protest against the police, not to question the generals, this is not American. And that is the problem with all the fetish patriotism. It starts with goosebumps, but it ends with goose steps.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett