On the one side, you have an atheist and avowed bachelor. On the other, a psychologist who thinks family and faith are the keys to progress from our current problems.
Those polar opposites made for some intense sparring on Friday’s Real Time, as Bill Maher faced off aganst a fiesty Dr. Phil McGraw, author of the new book, We’ve Got Issues: How You Can Stand Strong for America’s Soul and Sanity, and who will soon host Dr. Phil Primetime on his new cable network, Merit Street Media.
Dr. Phil entered to a standng ovation, and Maher acknowledged that he “has been America’s shrink for a very long time.” Now, Maher said, “you seem to want to do it or the country at large.”
Dr. Phil acknowledged that, adding that he wanted to do it “in steps.” He talked about his longevity by noting that “people tell you what they want you to address,” and said, “That’s really changed across time.”
The internet, Dr. Phil said, is transforming things. While the services are home to “preditors, bullies, and scams” that kids can’t escape, it is also making people more socially conscious – sometimes in a positive way, but sometimes in a convoluted concern for correctness that leaves even the U.S. Dept. of Justice reluctant to label someone a felon.
Maher agreed. “Wokeness started as a great thing. Now it’s where common sense goes to die.”
The two argued about whether some of Dr. Phil’s proposals were political stances.
Maher said Dr. Phil’s prescriptions for a better society couldn’t be done without being political. They particularly sparred when Dr. Phil claimed that the “strength of any country is the family, and the family in America is under attack.” He said that the government and teachers trying to co-parent children was a particular sore spot.
When Maher argued that he wasn’t a product of faith and family, Dr. Phil had a gotcha response, noting, “You come from a family, so don’t tell me you don’t have a family.”
Maher countered that the country was “moving in my direction,” and offered that maybe that’s also a part of the solution.
But Dr. Phil’s response was that the national drop in religious services attendance means there’s one less reason for families to get together each week. That and the dropping birth rate are problems, he said, “:So we need immigrants. We just need to know who they are.”
Maher brought up a topic from the book, which stated that we should “Let men be men.” The argument there centered on definitions and how colleges are warping the notions of masculinity. “It’s being labeled as toxic,” said Dr. Phil, adding, “You just can’t rewrite definitions.”
This week’s panel discussion had Tim Ryan, former Democratic Congressman from Ohio and founder of We The People Action Fund, and Batya Ungar-Sargon, Opinion editor at Newsweek and author of the forthcoming book, Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America’s Working Men and Women.
Ungar-Sargon was flabbergasted at times by the skewed statements of Ryan and Maher. After Ryan finished talking about projects that are being built in Ohio as part of Biden “reindustrializing the country,” Ungar-Sargon asked, “Your theory is that people have been given good jobs and just don’t realize it?”
She then asked Maher if he believed the country is better off now than we were four years ago.
Maher quipped, “I don’t know. I was wearing a mask. How are we worse?”
Ungar-Sargon then listed inflation, immigration, and high mortgage rates as symptoms of things getting worse.
In his “New Rules” editorial, Maher said Biden needs to embrace his age as a strength. “Take your ads off Twitter and put them on CBS,” he said.