Bill Maher On ‘Black Lives Matter’ Movement: Why Go After Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders?

Bill Maher took on the “Black Lives Matter” movement on the latest episode of Real Time on HBO, and what he had to say is sure to not sit well with supporters of the movement who have been showing up at campaign events for Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley and meeting in private with Hillary Clinton.

Maher seemed confused as to why the Black Lives Matter movement would want to target candidates who are already sympathetic to their cause, instead of those on the opposite end of the political spectrum.

“Conservatives certainly don’t have a monopoly on being unhelpful in the national debate,” Maher said of the group before launching into his criticisms.

He compared the BLM movement to “Occupy Wall Street,” stating that the people behind it “don’t know how to take it to a level where s**t gets done.”

At that point, Bill Maher said that they seem to not understand what Clinton was trying to tell them in a recent behind-closed-doors conversation.

“You have to change laws. You can’t just change the way people think,” Maher said, reiterating Clinton’s remarks.

U.S. Rep. Donna Edwards of Maryland disagreed with the idea that Occupy Wall Street was a failure, stating that they “changed the conversation” about how banks would promote inequality when it came to foreclosures, but Maher disagreed with the group’s effectiveness.

He ended it by posing this question.

“Why are you starting with people like Barney Frank and Hillary Clinton? Why not go at it with one of the thousand Republican candidates?”

This certainly isn’t the first time that Bill Maher has criticized movements on the progressive side, but he did find that “Black Lives Matter” was a more authentic response than “All Lives Matter” because “All Lives Matter” implies that “all lives are treated equally and they’re not.”

See the whole segment below.

https://youtu.be/TMyAHxiAoBg

Agree or not, Maher is right on one point: the Black Lives Matter movement is not getting the same level of positive attention from Republican candidates.

Donald Trump even took to Facebook recently to make fun of Bernie Sanders over an incident in which Black Lives Matter activists commandeered Sanders’ microphone and essentially shut down his event.

What do you think about the Black Lives Matter movement, readers? Is it extremely misguided to be picketing Democratic campaign events as Bill Maher has implied? Sound off in the comments section below.

[Image of Bill Maher via YouTube screen grab, linked above]