...how is Bill Maher in any way, shape, or form a socialist?
Maher has dabbled in socialism but it should be noted that Maher's a realist who is fully 100% aware that socialism/communism is a poison pill to normies who still have memories of the life under Communism in Europe and Asia and are fully aware of the nightmares going on to this day, in countries still under communist rule.
Hell, he recently got into a huge pissing match with Michael Moore a couple of months back over the issue: Moore has gone full commie and pretty much calling for the Democrats to go full commie under the guise that it's the only way they'll "fix" America as far as Moore calling for the DNC to go full 100% commie and inflict upon the nation an American version of Mao's "Great Leap Forward", also known as "The Green New Deal" as commies in the DNC have called their version of Mao's nightmarish "Great Leap Forward", the first chance they get power back in the White House and to do anything EVERYTHING they can to steamroll it into law, fuck the GOP and fuck anyone in the public who rightfully calls out how the Green New Deal is horrible and overtly fascist the policies inside of it are.
Maher basically called Moore out on his bullshit and then some, pointing out that the Democrats still have to win and that, in spite of what Moore claims when he claims the "young people" will gladly vote in a communist fascist society that once installed, will destroy the system to prevent them from ever getting voted out of office once their policies start harming people by the thousands and make shit worse than it currently is, the country is made up of normies and there are a LOT of Democrats who've seen how the movie goes when it comes to Communism and how it kills hundreds of thousands of people and in the case of Russia, took nearly a century to get the commies out of power once they get power and start the terror to eliminate any method of getting them out of power, by the ballot or counter-revolution.
Maher thinks that socialism can only be achieved incrementally at best (with excessive cherrypicking so you don't overthrow government norms) and that the only way you'll convince the the masses to go along with it even then, is to rebrand it along the lines of "Capitalism Plus", so as to ensure that you will keep people from panicking by thinking you are going to get rid of capitalism all together. Maher, if anything, is a realist and basically knows that America will never go full commie/socialist because of the track record of failed communist/socialist states and socialist/communist states that went full fascist is too engrained into the public mindset as a result of over 40+ years of Cold War propaganda.