During his monologue Friday night on HBO’s Real Time, host Bill Maher called Americans a “silly people” for allowing themselves to be mired in cultural issues, such as the politically correct cancelling of children’s books, while our superpower competition China grows in dominance.

“You’re not going to win the battle for the 21st century if you are a silly people. And Americans are a silly people,” Maher asserted. “Do you know who doesn’t care that there’s a stereotype of a Chinese man in a Dr. Seuss book? China. All 1.4 billion of them couldn’t give a crouching tiger flying fuck because they’re not a silly people. If anything, they are as serious as a prison fight.”

Maher pointed out that China has “built 500 entire cities from scratch, moved the majority of their huge population from poverty to the middle class, and mostly cornered the market in 5G and pharmaceuticals” in two generations,” while in America, “Half the country is having a never-ending woke competition deciding whether Mr. Potato Head has a d— and the other half believes we have to stop the lizard people because they’re eating babies. We are a silly people,” he continued, referring to America as an “impacted colon of a country” in terms of getting things accomplished.

“We see a problem and we ignore it, lie about it, fight about it, endlessly litigate it, sunset clause it, kick it down the road, and then write a bill where a half-assed solution doesn’t kick in for 10 years,” Maher said. “China sees a problem and they fix it. They build a dam. We debate what to rename it…

“Do you think China’s doing that, letting political correctness get in the way of nurturing their best and brightest?” Maher continued. “Do you think Chinese colleges are offering courses in ‘The Philosophy of Star Trek, ‘The Sociology of Seinfeld,’ and ‘Surviving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse’? Those are real and so is China. And they are eating our lunch. And believe me, in an hour, they’ll be hungry again.”

Unlike his fellow late-night political propagandists, Maher occasionally gets an issue right, and this is one of them. Ascendant China is hell-bent on world domination, and America (and the West generally) is a culture suffering from corrosive Marxist subversion.