Bill Maher has come in for tons of criticism since he opted to have dinner with Donald Trump, but none of it was as biting as a recent takedown by “Seinfeld” creator Larry David.
In an essay for the New York Times called “My Dinner With Adolf,” David took Maher to task for attempting to soften the image of a fascist strongman. While David never mentions the “Real Time” host by name, the timing of the piece and its main character’s need to hear out all sides past the point of ludicrousness make the target clear.
David’s fictional meeting with Adolf Hitler echoes many of the points that Maher has made in the days since he dined with Trump. Maher, a crochety liberal-leaning comic who has grown more crochety and less liberal as societal norms have passed him by, marvelled at the fact that he could make the commander-in-chief laugh.
I’m a life long New Yorker. Donald Trump was also born and raised in New York.
I can tell you that getting 90 percent of New Yorkers to agree on anything is an amazing feat. You couldn’t get 90% of New Yorkers to say something nice about the Yankees, or the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or Central Park.
Donald Trump lost his home town by 90% of the vote.
Yup.
Fuck the Yankees. Let’s go Mets! 😜
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had MAGA Morons tell me that HitlerPig has always been worshipped in NYC, even claiming that he’s ALWAYS been the “King Of New York City.”
I’ve always told them that its obvious that theyve never set foot in NYC, nor ever spoken to a New Yorker, because there isnt a single person who would ever have a good thing to say about him. He has been reviled since he first became a public figure.
Literally EVERYONE in NYC despises him.
It cuts across all classes. The truly rich despise him. When he was building his Tower, he had a golden opportunity to preserve the original building. This was at a time when Jackie Kennedy was pushing to keep the classic NYC buildings safe. Even his own architect told him to keep the old façade and build around it. Instead he demolished it AFTER he’d promised not to. Then there was the time he brought the Plaza Hotel and had to sell at a huge loss because he couldn’t finance it. And that’s not even half of what I could tell…
Oh, I’m well aware.
The destruction of that building facade was even worse than that. When it became clear that he wouldn’t preserve the facade, there were many that were willing to pay to remove iconic architectural/ 1sculptural elements and send them to museums, but he ordered his construction crew to simply destroy them.
As a person whose job partially consists of brand marketing, I see that as a great marketing opportunity for his brand image that he absolutely blew. He could have played along, let those architectural elements be removed to museums on someone else’s dime, as he stood out front, bloviating to the media that he is so proud to be the leader in preserving the iconic architectural history of the great city that he loves so much, and improving his standing with the city and its citizens. Instead, it was just “Fuck it, just destroy it all.”
And yeah, I’m well aware of his past, like his demand that the “Central Park Five” be executed, and when they were fully exonerated of the crime, he STILL insisted they be executed. It was then that I knew this psychopath could never be allowed to hold public office.
Now he’s sending innocent people to a torture gulag in a 3rd world country without Due Process, and people are surprised that he won’t lift a finger to correct their “administrative mistakes.” History rhymes again.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellisicky/2020/10/03/how-donald-trump-took-down-bonwit-teller-a-fifth-avenue-landmark/
Good article that details the whole story.
As an added bonus, John Baron makes a cameo
John Baron is good friends with Ron Varo.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/04/09/peter-navarro-pseudonym-ron-vara/
This shit is turning my hair white.
Just when you think that they can’t top Four Seasons Landscaping, they strap on a jet pack.
What was the name of the original building so I can look it up?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellisicky/2020/10/03/how-donald-trump-took-down-bonwit-teller-a-fifth-avenue-landmark/
Here’s an entire article, including Trump using Polish immigrant workers like slaves, and a guest appearance by John Baron
amazing what happens when you get to know a nazi on a deep level. see how petty, small, and dangerous they are
The other part of the story is that a pollster told people that Trump was hated in his hometown and MAGats loved it. The same people who watch TV and movies made in NYC; who buy everything Madison Avenue advertises; who accept New York fashion sense without question, seem to hate New York.
Same with California. They watch all the movies and TV shows produced here, buy all the tech Silicon Valley develops, and hate us.
Not to mention take our tax dollars for their welfare states.
i know. it’s the rural/urban divide the capitalist class has used to divide us for as long as we’ve told stories about the subjugation of the people to the will of the kings, emperors, and pharoahs. they convince the rural worker they have nothing in common with those high fallutin’ city folk that benefit from the fruits of the farmer’s labor. never mind that the city folk are just as destitute as the rural folk, and are simply trying to survive their material conditions as well. the rural worker hates the taxes they pay, and sees construction in the city and thinks their money is being funneled to benefit the urban worker. the truth is though that the capitalist would stop maintaining the city immediately, but it’s cheaper for them to keep making sure the city folk don’t revolt from strictly necessary aspects of city life to maintain their workforce of cleaners, cooks, and planners.
but none of this stops the capitalist from funding propaganda to tell the field worker it’s the city’s fault they’re poor.
it’s all a great big joke when you peel back the layers. a painful, cruel, and twisted joke
To your point about where the capitalist would spend money it’s actually the other way around. Capitalists hate the countryside, and nothing makes it more obvious than the shitty state of internet and package delivery. It costs way too much money to lay a mile of high-speed cable just so two families can pay not-even-that-much for an internet plan. USPS is and Canada Post are crucial services because of how badly the private parcel companies don’t want to serve rural communities.
oh i know. i’m speaking on this as a rural citizen who’s seen how my neighbors are manipulated. per capita, rural tax payers get more back from their taxes as benefits than city dwellers. the rural voter sees that it’s not enough though and seeths with anger. being isolated by the land around them, they’re easier to manipulate into blaming someone in an apartment than in a penthouse or mansion. the best way to resist fascism is to go out into the world and talk to people. the rural voters who fuel fascism are less able to do this thanks to their material conditions, making them more vulnerable to bullshit propaganda. urban voters meanwhile, are not immune to fascism, but are far more likely to encounter perspectives other than their own by the nature of their lived experience in a large community.
the most terrifying in all this are the suburbs. the places where people actively choose to tune out of being connected in favor of a 1950s vision of america that would be easier to manipulate a la brave new world and 1984 into working against their own best interests.
fuck. i’m gonna have to go listen to nazi by chumbawamba now…
Well put. And oh the suburbs, where the greatest argument always seems to be centered around how much they hate their neighbours and believe that a cut lawn in a development is closer to nature than a full, grown back alley with maybe even a small community garden(fairly common in the major city where I live).
Something you don’t hear much about is the death of the ‘small town rich.’
Back in the day, a town would have a local bank and a local newspaper. The factory owners kids would go to the local high school. Sure they were capitalists, but they saw the town as their home. Those days are over. Even if a rich person lives in the town, they send their kids to a private school and would love to move out.
The locals can go hang.
They definitely do not hate the countryside. They just want it for themselves.
This Land is My Land
rural people/conservatives are so brainwashed most of the tax moneys paid by blue states go to red and rural areas.
100%. i’m only trying to explain how the brainwashing works and why it’s effective. to combat it you must be aware of its mechanisms
Has there ever been a person elected president who has so convincingly lost their home district/state? Besides Trump 2016 and Trump 2024, that is.
“Favorite son” has been a standard American politics term for decades.
When Rudy Giuliani won in his second term, he was considered a massive winner, and he got less than 60% of the vote.
Harris won nowhere near 90% of NYC. The city itself voted 68/30 for Harris/Trump. Manhattan hit 80% as the “bluest” borough. Staten Island and Hasidic Brooklyn voted overwhelmingly for Trump.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election_in_New_York
https://abc7ny.com/election-2016-nyc-results-president/1598306/
In 2016 Trump lost by 80%. So I was a bit off.
hes park avenue new york, the rich part of ny, not the rest of the “plebs” he hates.
No. He’s from the borough of Queens. He always tried to get in good with the real Manhattan elites, and was always shot down. In fact, at the start, he only got a little fame because his first wife, Ivana, was really glamourous. He was just the guy who carried her bags.
haha, just like hes carrying putins bags right now.
Been carrying them since the 1980s.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/19/trump-first-moscow-trip-215842/