He is not racist, he is anti-Islam, just as he is anti-religion. There is a big difference, which still gets a person into hot water.
Unfortunately many many people conflate it with an ethnicity, and are immediately offended. I fault him for being tone deaf and not anticipating people's reactions to how he addresses issues. I don't agree with how he has handled the issue either, but it pissed me off to sit and watch the entire tv exchange he had with Ben Afleck, in which Ben totally mischaracterized his words, then to watch the media pile on. Many of the pundits had very obviously not watched the exchange but relied on second-hand accounts, because they "reported" statements Maher never actually made.

@MikeInBatonRouge I don't know about that. I also don't think someone being an ass about his being an ass gives him a pass ??. I have seen him make anti Islamic and anti-Arab comments on his show in the past. It is why I stopped watching him. A few years ago.

Makes sense. I liked Bill's description of the Culture's reverence for fantastical hero-worship setting up voters who are also politically uninformed to fall for the allure of self-declared heroes promising the impossible, who are of course nothing but con men.

@MikeInBatonRouge That is all politics is a shell game of con artists

@zorialoki our job as voters is to weed out the most egregious of them. Bill's point was that superhero glorification has contributed to voters being even more likely to fall for the con of the politician promising the impossible.