WASHINGTON (TND) — Comedian and HBO talk show host Bill Maher spoke with a publication in Alabama about the current political divide in America and its effects on the comedy scene.

AL.com sat down with Maher in an interview focused on how liberals and conservatives can get along, why comedy and political correctness are at odds, and why the country is in "big trouble" unless things change.

Maher is a self-described "old-school" liberal, but says he enjoys having people all across the political spectrum attend his shows. At one of his recent shows in Nashville, Tenn., Maher says the audience seemed split between conservatives and liberals, and it was "great to see".

I was in Nashville three or four months ago, I think the audience there was almost 50-50 between conservatives and liberals, which is quite a trick, I must say, in this era of a lack of bipartisanship, where everything is binary. Gender may not be binary, but politics sure is right now," Maher joked during his interview. "It was great to see where there were people who don’t agree politically who can get in the same room. There were a few groans from the right when I said something bad about them, and some from the left when that happened. But basically everyone laughed together. And we have to get back to that.

But getting "back to that" may be difficult if either side sees itself as "superior" to the other. In his interview with AL.com, Maher shared what he believes to be the "Achilles heel" of liberal Americans:

I constantly say it, you can hate Trump. You can’t hate all the people who like him — it’s half the country. And you can’t set yourself up as some sort of superior moral paragon, because this is your political belief, and somebody else has another one," Maher explains in the interview.

There are obviously areas where, yes, if somebody’s advocating cannibalism, I think you can claim the moral high ground if you’re anti. I feel like that’s the Achilles heel of the left right now. They identify issues mostly by what they can feel superior to another person for.

A good example of this "moral superiority" in action, Maher says, is the discussion surrounding the COVID-19 vaccine. Maher says people wrongly think if they are for "more safety" then they are a "better person" than others.

It doesn’t make you a better person if you’re wearing three masks or if you want 10 booster shots... just to throw in with Dr. Fauci doesn’t mean you’re a morally superior person. That attitude is what annoys people, I think, mostly about the left," Maher says.

Maher has decried this "moral superiority" before. Appearing on CNN's Cuomo Prime Time in November, Maher argued about the idea of being "woke" and how Americans interpret certain social justice efforts. While host Chris Cuomo suggested being "woke" meant being "aware and inclusive", Maher countered the term has come to mean "doing things that don't make sense."

Maher elaborates, saying he keeps telling Democrats his opinion on "wokeness" and how the public at large views it. He says people see things posted on social media and think, "oh, these people are nuts."

I keep saying this to the Democratic party. The reason why you were so toxic is because you have become the party of no common sense," Maher said during his CNN appearance. "And people see this on their newsfeeds. I mean, you were saying to me in the break, 'people mostly go on with their lives.' They do, but they see things on their phone or on their Facebook page. People pass things around and it's a constant drip, drip, drip of, oh, these people are nuts.

Speaking with AL.com, Maher again speaks on the perpetuation of social media polarization, criticizing those who use platforms like Twitter and Facebook to attack others.

You see these tweets and memes about owning and destroying the other side. Get over it. You’re not owning or destroying anybody. No one’s going anywhere. We have to learn to live together again," Maher says.