Bill Maher isn’t celebrating the Democrat Party’s sweeping midterm victories without reservations. The liberal HBO host is warning that the party’s growing socialist wing could take Democrats in a dangerous direction, and he believes America’s schools deserve some of the blame.
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During Friday’s “Overtime” segment of “Real Time,” Maher argued that young Americans are embracing socialism without understanding its historical failures.
“The reason why they don’t know that socialism didn’t work in the past, to this degree, or Communism, is because nobody taught them in school,” Maher said.
He called that failure “an indictment of our educational system,” suggesting younger generations have been left without the historical perspective necessary to evaluate the economic systems they increasingly support.
Maher’s comments come as socialist Democrats are gaining influence within the Democrat Party, including some notable victories in Tuesday’s elections.
In Los Angeles, democratic socialist Nithya Raman defeated incumbent Mayor Karen Bass. Washington, D.C., elected Democratic Socialist Janeese Lewis George, while New York City is already governed by Zohran Mamdani, who won the mayoralty in 2025.
Socialists have effectively infiltrated and hijacked the party through primaries and local elections, running dishonestly on seemingly “dinner table” issues like housing affordability. This is the modern-day version of “Bread, Land and Peace” that the Bolsheviks ran on in 1917, before they took over Russia and started liquidating millions of political enemies.
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Maher, however, wants to meet radical leftists in the middle, as if there is a negotiation to be had with communists.
“We already have a lot of socialism and a lot of it is appropriate,” Maher said, citing Social Security and Medicare among government programs he supports.
But he distinguished those programs from what he characterized as the far left’s ambitions for dramatically expanding government control.
“These people want communism,” he warned.
Where has Maher been? I’ve only been saying this for 20 years. But it’s good to see someone finally use the “c-word” on the cable talk show circuit.
Political commentator Coleman Hughes also questioned socialist economic policies, pointing specifically to rent control measures that can discourage housing construction and worsen shortages.
And Americans don’t have to revisit the Soviet Union to find examples of the dangers Maher is discussing.
Venezuela’s economic collapse unfolded under socialist governments that expanded nationalization, price controls and state intervention. Combined with corruption, dependence on oil revenues and other pressures, those policies contributed to a catastrophe that drove millions from the country.
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Cuba, meanwhile, continues to experience severe shortages and infrastructure failures under its centrally planned economic system, with a nationwide power outage in March 2026 highlighting the country’s ongoing crisis.
Maher believes moderate Democrats should recognize those risks rather than surrender the party’s direction to its ideological left.
“Who has the guts to say this is the Democratic Party, you are doing a whole different thing?” he asked.
Very few. And if we are to believe the new leadership of the Socialist Democrat Party, those voices will be censored or canceled.
Editor’s Note: The Democrat Party has been infected by socialism, and it’s spreading FAST. Democrats are claiming there’s nothing to worry about, but we know the truth.
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