Comedian Bill Maher declared Sunday that Donald Trump voters live in a “fact-free bubble” and that he feared what they might do if their candidate loses on November 8.
In an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, the host of HBO’s “Real Time” said he found Trump’s eruption onto the political scene, and his popularity, “depressing.”
“Donald Trump is a reflection, and what we learned is that there’s a lot of vulgar, tacky, racist people in this country, more than I thought,” Maher said.
“I knew there were some, but it’s the proverbial lifting up of a rock. And what we found when we lifted it up was a basket of deplorables” he added, referencing Hillary Clinton’s controversial comments in September about Donald Trump supporters.
Maher said Trump voters live in “a reality of their own choosing.”
“It’s not even a race between ideologies anymore. It’s not Republican and Democrat or conservative and liberal. It’s reality versus alternative reality,” he said.
It’s this mindset that leads to unerring loyalty, Maher said, despite what he called Trump’s predilection for “bold-faced, caught-on-tape lying.”
“They don’t care. They know, or they don’t know, it doesn’t matter to them. He’s their guy,” Maher said.
Maher also voiced his concern about what Trump’s supporters will do if he loses, given his recent statements about the election being rigged, something that Maher called “dangerous talk.”
“I worry about that,” he said.
“I mean, first of all, they live in this, again, alternative reality where the country is hanging by a thread, and if she is elected, it’s this existential threat to our way of life on Earth. It’s just insane. But if you have that mindset, and then he loses, what happens?”
Far from admitting a gracious defeat, Maher speculated that Trump was likely to become a “martyr to his loss” should he lose to Clinton.
“I don’t think he goes away. I — you know, this is a Caesar crossing the Rubicon moment. He’s got an army. What’s he going to do with that army?” Maher said.
“I think he’s going to be the Che Guevara of deplorables,” he added.