In a blinding, supernova-esque flash of political non-relevance, Bill Maher used his precious time on Earth (and HBO) last night to return Ken Bone—the “undecided voter” whose fun little mustache briefly ensnared the public consciousness back during the 2016 election—to the political spotlight, a decision that nobody, including Bone himself, seemed to think was a particularly good idea. Clad (apparently at Maher’s request) in the red sweater that made him briefly famous during last year’s October debate, the recovering meme openly questioned why Maher wanted to put him back on TV, and refused to answer questions about who he actually ended up voting for.
Maher was apparently fascinated by Bone’s status as a “gettable” voter, flabbergasted at the thought of someone looking at Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and being unable to make an easy choice between them. (For what it’s worth, Bone pointed out that he only ever got the “undecided” label because he gave a “2" when asked to rate his likelihood to change his mind on a scale from 1 to 10, a position of relative malleability in last year’s polarized political nightmare.) More to the point, though, Bone reiterated the idea that no one does, or should, give a shit about his voting record.
“Like it or not, we’re obsessed with celebrities in this country,” Bone said, managing to make more sense than the veteran political comic trying to grill him. “And even an F-list celebrity like me, people put stock in my opinion and it’s not fair to the democratic process if I tell them what to believe. I’m a random dude that works at a power plant, people don’t need to be informed by me.” He also pointed out that he never asked to be born, meme-wise, noting, “People are already asking me who I’ll vote for in 2020, and I won’t answer them. It turns our political process into TMZ and it creates people like me and nothing but sound bites and sniping back and forth.”
When pressed by Maher—who labeled him “a confusing man”—Bone (whose love affair with America turned sour after people dug through his Reddit account and discovered that he was an actual human being with occasional shitty takes, and not just some cuddly political teddy bear) stated that he voted once for Obama and once for McCain, and occasionally checks Fox News. (Mostly to see what the extreme right is saying, before vetting it via other sources.) Receiving a number of applause breaks from Maher’s audience, Bone mostly just came off as a dude, one just as baffled as the rest of us that Maher seemed interested in a random power plant worker’s take on the American political scene.
Anyway, be sure to tune into Real Time next week, when Maher will presumably interview other relics of old political meme culture, like Joe The Plumber, or that guy who threw a shoe at George W. Bush.