Well for one, a lot of his more problematic stuff is from over a decade ago. (Yes, this is going to be a Stanhope apologia post.) As painful as it is, I think we have to recognize that things like transphobia and casual, "comedic" bigotry was very mainstream until recently. It just was, and I believe he's changed.

I think it's important to know that his long term partner suffers from severe mental illness and has had several suicide attempts and things of that nature. He's seen these things firsthand and I believe that has changed his views on a lot of things. Is he crude? Absolutely. Does he make jokes some would find tasteless? Sure. But if you look a little deeper, and if you listen to his podcast since that's been his main form of artistic output for years now even before the pandemic, you'll find a deeply empathetic man who is really trying to cope and tell the stories of people, including himself, who just don't quite fit in to mainstream society. He hangs out with way too many interesting people for me to say he's some kind of bitter bigot. Some of the most caring people I know talk the way he does, and they've been beaten down by society as much as anybody.

As far as politics, I think he's mostly a cynic. The little he does talk about economics, he does hit the points that we can all agree with, even if he never proposes a solution. And he really, really believes in personal freedom, which is more than we can say for a lot of people. I think he has the right ideas but mostly just stays out of politics because it's too depressing.

At least for myself, and a lot of the people I know, he's one of us. We're mad, we might be kind of dumb sometimes, and we might say some inappropriate shit. But I absolutely believe that he's a decent and caring person who does, from time to time, try to enlighten people as to the fucked up shit going on in our society.