Bill Maher has found who to blame for President Donald Trump: comic book creator Stan Lee.
Maher believes that the success of Lee’s Marvel Comics negatively impacted American voters’ minds enough to vote Trump into office. Maher’s theory arrives after Lee's death on Nov. 12.
“The guy who created Spider-Man and the Hulk has died, and America is in mourning,” Maher wrote on the blog for his HBO show, Real Time. “Deep, deep mourning for a man who inspired millions to, I don’t know, watch a movie, I guess.”
“But then twenty years or so ago, something happened—adults decided they didn’t have to give up kid stuff,” he continued. “And so they pretended comic books were actually sophisticated literature. And because America has over 4,500 colleges—which means we need more professors than we have smart people—some dumb people got to be professors by writing theses with titles like Otherness and Heterodoxy in the Silver Surfer.”
Maher’s reasoning doesn’t exactly add up. He squarely places the blame on Lee for the popularity of his comic books, explaining that they prevented Americans’ brains from further developing.
Maher concluded the post by writing, “The problem is, we’re using our smarts on stupid stuff. I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to suggest that Donald Trump could only get elected in a country that thinks comic books are important.”
