During Friday’s edition of Real Time With Bill Maher, most of the panel had few kind things to say about Republicans and conservatives. Panelist Thom Hartmann referred to them as “rubes” while host Bill Maher described them as “stupid and racist.”

The discussion began with a focus on the meaning of the word “elite” and who it refers to, as a result of populist Fox News host Steve Hilton’s presence on the panel. According to Maher, “When I hear elite, I think of Brett Kavanaugh.” Maher referred to Kavanaugh as “the guy who went to the asshole factory prep school” before suggesting that “when the Trump people talk about the elites,” they are referring to “some liberal arts professor at Oberlin.”

Progressive radio show host Thom Hartmann jumped in, saying: When Republicans use the word ‘elite,’ they are referring to smart people. When Democrats use the word ‘elite,’ they are referring to rich people.” Perhaps that was his way of describing Republicans as “dumb.”

A discussion ensued about the vague sexual assault allegation against Kavanaugh that became public after his confirmation hearings concluded, where Hartmann proceeded to effectively declare Kavanaugh guilty: “It is bizarre, lying to the FBI, you go to jail. She’s saying I want to talk to the FBI. He’s saying and his friend is saying, no, I don’t want to talk to the FBI. That should tell you everything you need to know.”

According to Hartmann, the Republicans are “keeping their eye on their constituency” by supporting Brett Kavanaugh before giving a detailed description of his depiction of the Republican Party: “They put together, you know, it started out as, we are all about the rich people, but, you know, there aren’t enough rich people to get them elected so we’ve got to bring in the rubes so let’s throw out some gun stuff but mostly let’s throw out some God stuff.”

Host Bill Maher suggested that lots of other judges would advance the Republican constituency’s goal of getting rid of Roe v. Wade but stated that the President has decided to protect Kavanaugh at all costs because he argued “you can’t ever, ever go after a President when he is in office.” Hartmann later repeated the lie that Kavanaugh referred to birth control pills as abortifacients (he was merely stating the plaintiffs’ position in a particular case) and panelist PJ O’Rourke sarcastically suggested that Kavanaugh wanted to ban masturbation.

Hilton, the lone non-Trump hater on the panel, said that using language like “rubes” to describe Republicans explains why President Trump got elected. Maher disagreed, saying “like they would have voted for Hillary anyway” before smearing them as racist: “I hate this idea that we can't talk about the two things they don't want us to say, stupid and racist, even though check and check. You know, I’m tired of pretending. I am. They don’t even vote their economic interests.”

According to Maher, “the Republican Party is just becoming...11 older white men on the Judiciary Committee, it looks like the town elders who banned dancing on ‘Footloose.’” It comes across as quite ironic that less than a minute after smearing an entire group of people as racist, Maher made a sweeping generalization about a group of people based on their race.

Perhaps O’Rourke said it best when he described the elite as “wise ass pundits who appear on TV.” No matter how one chooses to define “elite,” plenty of elitism was on display on Friday night’s edition of Real Time, not an uncommon occurrence in today’s media landscape; whether it’s on cable news or the so-called “comedy” shows that have simply become a conduit for additionial round-the-clock Trump criticism.

At one point, Maher remarked that “every time we seem to get to one of these things, these scandals or big news stories that the whole country is watching, it just makes us more divided. You see the people pushing away even further.” He’s right. Maybe he fails to realize that the elitism on his show definitely does not help make us less divided.

A transcript of the relevant portion of Real Time With Bill Maher is below. Click “expand” to read more.