Last night, Bill Maher became the most recent defender of Michelle Wolf’s performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner (WHCD). He echoed others by saying, “She did her job!” Yes. If her job was to create sympathy for Donald Trump. On April 28, the day of the WHCD dinner Trump’s net approval rating according to the Real Clear Politics average was minus 12.4 percent. This morning it sits at minus 7.7 percent. The 44.4 percent gross approval rating is Trump’s highest since February 20, 2017 when a lot of skeptics were still saying, “Give him a chance.”
Dr. ESP/”I Hate It When I’m Right,” May 5, 2018
The above quote sets the stage for the following conversation. My point? In 2018, I made a synchronistic connection between facts in two distinct stories which I had not seen in any other coverage of the events. However, note I did not claim that I was the first person to point out that over-the-top Trump bashing energized his base. Nor do I assume that the August 22 New York Times editorial, “A Way Out of Gerrymandering’s Mutually Assured Destruction,” which contained many of the same facts I used a week earlier in my post “The Fair Way,” was a rip off of my work. Gerrymandering was the topic du jour, and anybody who wanted it had the same access to the history of political redistricting. Which brings me back to today’s main story: self-appropriation of intellectual property.
I cannot recall exactly when I stopped watching “Real Time with Bill Maher.” Nor, at the time, do I know what changed my attitude toward him. The stale references to current events in his opening monologue? His willingness to give Trump enablers a platform to spout their bullshit? Weekly documentation of his battle with the Los Angeles and California governments to obtain a permit to add solar panels to his Beverly Hills home, despite the fact he sought the permit during the COVID pandemic. Additionally, some of the most stringent regulations in the California building code address the issues of earthquakes and wildfires. That did not stop Maher from criticizing the state for doing too little to anticipate and prepare for last January’s devastating conflagrations.
However, a flood of news articles about the August 22 episode of “Real Time,” including a take down by actor, comedian and “WTF” podcast host Marc Maron piqued my curiosity. I wanted to see what the hub-bub was all about. The only benefit of wasting 60 minutes of my life was that it clarified why “Real Time” has become “must not see TV.” Maron laser-focused on Maher’s tendency to conflate political expediency with good public policy. Consider the following statement in which Maher suggests Trump is a genius.
While Democrats offer up high-minded intangibles like equity and saving the soul of America, Trump says, ‘Hey waitress, how would you like to pay no tax on those tips?’ Remember that? And everybody was like, ‘Why didn’t we think of that?’
Because it does not make sense to give hospitality workers at places like Morton’s Steak House or Mar-a-Lago, most of whom make more than public school teachers and elder caregivers, a tax break because their employers refuse to pay them a living wage. [NOTE: I cringed when Kamala Harris seconded the proposal instead of explaining the inequity. Maher could have just as easily told Democrats, “If you’re going to run on intangibles like equity, don’t support policies which undermine it.”]
However, half-way into the program I realized why I had joined the ranks of those who no longer tune in to “Real Time.” Bill Maher has become the mirror image of Donald Trump. At least a half dozen times he interrupted his guests to claim he was the first person to say something or the first to raise an issue. He may not have laid claim to the word “groceries,” but just the same, took credit for several things where credit was not due. The best example was his claim that he was the first person to describe Trump’s authoritarian actions as “a slow-moving coup.” And just like Trump, Maher’s cultish followers jump on his ME FIRST bandwagon despite the evidence.
On Saturday, HUFFPOST.COM, in an article titled, “Bill Maher Revives Prediction of ‘Slow-Moving Coup’ Amid Trump’s DC Takeover,” reporter Marco Margaritoff writes, “He [Maher] noted Friday that he’s used the phrase “slow-moving coup” since Trump was first elected in 2016.” However, if you Google the phrase “exactly when did Bill Maher first use the term ‘slow-moving coup’,” it produces the following:
Bill Maher first used the phrase “slow-moving coup” during a monologue on the October 8, 2021, episode of his HBO show, Real Time with Bill Maher. In the segment, he warned viewers about what he saw as former President Donald Trump’s methodical efforts to undermine democratic norms and potentially subvert the 2024 election.
Within two weeks, SALON.COM confirmed this timeline in the following October 21, 2021 on-line commentary by Alan Blotcky,
Comedian Bill Maher, former National Security Council member Fiona Hill and NYU historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat have all recently used the term “slow-moving coup.” In fact, that term, in various formulations, has appeared numerous times in Salon, beginning in 2017, Donald Trump’s first year as president
Again note, Blotcky did not claim that Salon Magazine had coined the phrase, only that it appeared in print in their publication four years before Maher used it on his program.
As many of my readers know, I have spent the latter third of my professional and personal life trying to better understand the creative process and promoting its use. I applaud those who come up with unique and illuminating words and phrases that help us better comprehend the human condition. But there is a way to ratify one’s ownership of anything they believe to be novel. Donald, you could copyright the word “groceries. Or Bill, you could do the same with the phrase “slow-moving coup.” Go through the complex regulatory and legal process to verify your claim.
When you go through those proper channels, there are no simple answers nor is the outcome predictable. For example, much to many people’s surprise, the U.S. Copyright Office issued a 2019 ruling that the word THE, as part of the name of Ohio State University, was protected since it was central to the institution’s brand going back to its first appearance in 1986. In response to the ruling, my graduate alma mater dropped “The” from all materials which referred to the institution as The Johns Hopkins University.
I write this to remind Maher, Trump and their kind, “There is nothing new under the sun.” And specifically in Maher’s case, nor under a spotlight at 10:00 P.M. (east coast time) on a Friday night. However, in the right configuration or context, some words and phrases meet the copyright criteria: “independently created by a human author and have a minimal degree of creativity” and “work is fixed when it is captured in a permanent medium such that the work can be perceived, reproduced, or communicated for more than a short time.” (Source: “What is Copyright?”/U.S. Copyright Office)
But to be clear, simply stating you were the first person who used the words “groceries” or “slow-moving coup” may be a “novel” way of claiming ownership. However, it does not make it so.
For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP