The firing of Barr for writing a racist tweet has led some conservatives to decry an alleged double standard. On Tuesday, Charlie Kirk tweeted:
Wait, Bill Maher makes comparisons to Trump being a gorilla all the time?
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) May 29, 2018
They get classified as "jokes" by the media and he is of course allowed to keep his show and not have his life ruined
The difference?
Bill Maher is a liberal, Roseanne is a free-thinking Trump supporter
Going a bit further, some on the right are calling for tit-for-tat revenge, demanding that Maher be fired:
🐵RT🐵 if you agree that liberal run media industry is completely hypocritical for firing Roseanne Barr for "Plant of Apes" joke yet did absolutly NOTHING when Bill Maher called President Trump an orangutan.
— Michael Nöthem (@mikandynothem) May 29, 2018
Talk about a double standard!
Fire Maher! #MAGA #ChanningDungey #tcot pic.twitter.com/XN2Lg4qIju
This argument rests on a false equivalence. Maher’s insult of Trump was a personal one, while Barr’s attack on Valarie Jarrett rests on a centuries old anti-black trope linking African Americans to apes.
But also, Maher and Barr aren’t equivalent figures politically. Maher might lean liberal but he’s heterodox on many issues such as Islam (where he’s been guilty of Islamophobia). And he often has conservative guests on his show and gives them ample time to talk. Given all that, retaliating against Maher seems counterproductive, a fact that the smarter conservatives figured out:
I'm trying to figure out which galaxy brain level we're operating on when MAGA Twitter is trying to get Bill Maher fired when he's maybe the only somewhat mainstream guy on the left who ardently defends free speech against social media mobs.
— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) May 29, 2018