“The View” co-hosts ranted about HBO comedian Bill Maher’s criticism of the far-left during Thursday’s panel.
Maher criticized the removal of a statue of Abraham Lincoln and warned about the “woke” left moving to become more extreme in their ideology during an exclusive Tuesday interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper. He said the term “woke” has evolved from being against social injustice to an “eye roll” for being against a diversity of ideas.
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg claimed the statue of Lincoln had to be removed because it displayed a slave at his feet. She then argued that the “non-woke” people were “asleep” and had to wake up to their ideology.
“Most of y’all were asleep,” Goldberg said. “I’m talking to all those who folks who use that term ‘woke’ all the time. Y’all were asleep. We were never asleep. We had to stay awake watching you. So you woke up and said ‘oh my god, there’s lots of women running around doing things they’re not supposed to be doing, and drag queens everywhere! And oh my god, people of color.’ You always talk about snowflakes. Look in the mirror! Y’all can’t seem to handle anything. You can’t seem to handle competition from Democrats to Republicans. You can’t seem to handle the discussions about why people feel the way they do. Your idea is to get rid of everything. So stop calling us snowflakes!”
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Co-host Sunny Hostin said Maher “should be ashamed” for allegedly co-opting the term “woke,” which she defines as fighting social inequity. She accused the “far-right” of co-opting the word by comparing it to identity politics. (RELATED: ‘They’re The One Worried About Wokeness’: Joy Behar Claims Republicans Are The Ones ‘Canceling’ Everything)
“He [Maher] is comparing ‘woke’ with identity politics. He thinks ‘woke’ means a diversity of opinion. That is not what ‘woke’ meant in the mid-1900s, it’s not what ‘woke’ meant during the Civil Rights Movement, it’s not what ‘woke’ meant during BLM, it’s not ‘woke’ means now,” Hostin said. “And I think he should be ashamed of some of the things that he has said about ‘wokeness.’ He has called college campuses too ‘woke’ because they are talking about diversity and social justice and inclusion.”
Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin questioned why “wokeness” should include diversity of ideas, to which Hostin argued directly correlates to “racism and social justice.”
Maher, who himself is a liberal, has argued that his politics has remained the same while his own side of the political aisle has shifted further to the left. He criticized college campuses for holding some college commencements solely for black and Hispanic students and the black national anthem during a Sept. 13, 2021, episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
He criticized the modern Democratic Party for “alienating” a large portion of the country by focusing too heavily on race and social justice in November 2021. He joked that the party’s new slogan should become, “Vote Democrat because white people suck.”