Bill Maher thinks the reason both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are supported by younger voters is that they are “as real as real gets.”
“No one thought a politician could survive, much less stay in the lead for as long as Trump has, based on a campaign of braggadocio and utter contempt for political correctness,” Maher wrote in an essay for the Hollywood Reporter. “But the younger generation is leading a movement to prize authenticity above all. Trump is a petulant child, but at least that’s real, they seem to be saying. Bernie, too, is as real as real gets.”
Maher argues that both Trump and Sanders say “the old [political] deal just hasn’t been working for a long time, and we need something else for the half of America that is desperate.”
Their supporters “are people who have sat out for a long time because the Democrats became a corporatist, center-right party and the Republicans became radically right.”
“It’s funny that both the left and the right could not agree more that the country needs radical change. It’s no longer this endeavor where you have to watch every word you say,” the comedian continued.
Furthermore, Maher says Sanders and Trump have benefitted from Hillary Clinton being a “terrible campaigner who is living in a different era.”
“I think all the enthusiasm that people wanted to have for Hillary Clinton — the first woman president! — they’re having trouble mustering because of the way she campaigns and because Bernie is more exciting,” he said of the Democratic primary.
In regards to Trump, Maher stated he “will win the election if the American people have to choose between his demagoguery and a party that won’t even say the words ‘Islamic terrorism.'”