For decades, HBO host Bill Maher has been a reliable voice for Democrats, often defending their policies and mocking their critics. But even Maher now appears alarmed by the party’s trajectory — one he says is veering toward “straight-up communism.”
On a recent episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, the lifelong Democrat declared that his party is facing an “identity crisis” and must decide whether it stands with “Western civilization” or with what he described as extremists like New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, who Maher suggested embodies the party’s growing radical wing.
“I don’t think the Democratic Party is going to go forward until they make a decision: whose side are you on here?” Maher said. “Are you on the side of Western civilization and Western values or are you on the side of the terrorists?”
Maher cited Mamdani, who has gained influence among progressive Democrats, as an example of this dangerous trend: “Are you with those kids? Because Mamdani, he’s the perfect candidate for them.”
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Earlier in the episode, Maher clashed with Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) over Mamdani’s rise in the party. Maher labeled Mamdani’s rhetoric as dangerously extreme, while Crow defended Democrats’ decision to support the candidate, dismissing the criticism as overblown and blaming Republicans for “creating some boogeyman.”
“There’s a lot of opposition [to Mamdani] because we’ve never had someone this radical,” Maher said. “Some of the things he says, you know he quotes Marxists, ‘each according to their need.’ I mean, that’s straight-up communism.”
Mamdani’s own words make the point for Maher. In 2021, he openly stated that his end goal is to “seize the means of production.”
“But then there are also other issues that we firmly believe in, whether it’s BDS or whether it is the end goal of seizing the means of production, where we do not have the same level of support at this very moment,” Mamdani said.
Mamdani isn’t just a Woke Communist—he’s a textbook Marxist. His agenda goes beyond identity politics; it’s rooted in the classic Marxist goal of seizing the means of production—abolishing private property and placing factories, resources, and land under state control.
He is a… pic.twitter.com/xMfvesWYp2
— Xi Van Fleet (@XVanFleet) June 30, 2025
He has also expressed support for abolishing private property.
“If there was any system that could guarantee each person housing, whether you call it the abolition of private property or you call it, you know, just a statewide housing guarantee, it is preferable to what is going on right now,” Mamdani said in a 2020 clip.
Mamdani is a commie in theory . He has no clue what is alike to live in a gov guaranteed community housing. I did, growing up in Mao’s China with 7 other workers’ families sharing one restroom, one water faucet. I love living in the house we own in NH.
pic.twitter.com/9xPOS9uYg9— Lily Tang Williams (@Lily4Liberty) July 20, 2025
Put plainly: this is textbook communism. And by rallying behind Mamdani, Democrats are signaling that they’re comfortable with it — the very concern Maher warned about.
Maher wasn’t alone in his criticism. Author James Kirchick, another left-leaning guest on the show, blasted Democrats for their refusal to confront the growing communist rhetoric in their ranks, calling the party’s silence spineless.
If Maher sounds like he’s panicking, it’s because he is. And if Democrats don’t course-correct, his warning — that they are on the verge of becoming a party of “straight-up communists” — may end up sounding less like hyperbole and more like a statement of fact.