Bill Maher warns Democrats against the party's far-left wing after midterm sweep

Comedian Bill Maher has urged moderate Democrats to push back against the party's socialist wing following the Democrats' historic sweep in the midterm elections. On Friday's episode of HBO's "Real Time", he said the far-left "want communism".

During the show's roundtable discussion on Friday, Maher spoke with writer and podcast host Coleman Hughes about the rise of socialist policies within the Democratic Party and voters' apparent appetite for more moderate candidates.

Hughes said, "My issues are high rents and crime. Socialists don't tend to be good on those issues because they institute policies like rent control, which sound good and then end up increasing the rents in the long run."

Hughes added, "And we got a hundred years of data on socialism. It's not good for the economy. It's not a new idea."

Maher appeared to agree with his guest, arguing that many of the policies pushed by socialist candidates are more closely aligned with communist ideology.

Maher said, "We already have a lot of socialism and a lot of it is appropriate. That's not what these people are selling, these far-left people."

Some government services and programmes — including Medicare, the Marine Corps and Social Security — fall under his definition of socialism, Maher said. "It's anything the government does and the private sector doesn't," he said. "You just read what they say in their manifesto. They want the government to take over everything. That is a prescription for failure."

Maher also argued that the sweeping victories by moderate Democrats could indicate a broader voter rejection of the policies advocated by far-left candidates.

He told his audience, "To me, one of the great results of this election was it gave moderates a big stick to beat them off with."

Maher added that moderate Democrats could use their midterm victories to regain control of the party, while suggesting that the socialist agenda may not be as popular with voters as its supporters believe.