Jon Stewart, godfather of 21st-century liberal midwits, returned in style to his old post at The Daily Show with some daring observations about Joe Biden’s age. This was Stewart’s idea of flexing his radical independence from the lame and ossified Democratic Party and its decrepit leader. Stewart is willing to say what nobody else will: Joe Biden is old.

Stewart was careful to apologize for his jab at Biden and he expiated his sin with a knock at Donald Trump. The death of Alexei Navalny, Russia’s token opposition leader, also offered Stewart an opportunity to writhe self-righteously about “freedom.” Stewart scolded his old rival, Tucker Carlson, for marveling at Moscow’s clean public spaces and comparing them to the Third World cesspools of New York, Denver, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Stewart, with his combination of smugness and pretend transgression, informed Carlson that America’s filthy, crime-ridden subways are the “literal price of freedom.”

Being a well-behaved party man, Stewart missed the chance to comment on the draconian campaign to disable the opposition leader in this country, Donald Trump. Biden’s electoral opponent was hit with an unconscionable $450 million-plus fine for “fraud” in a case with no victims by a judge who made no effort to conceal his personal hatred for the former president.

But Stewart’s idea of “freedom” must be understood in the same way liberals use the term “Our Democracy™.” For Stewart, “freedom” is about reveling in obscenity with shallow performances of dissent. Stewart called Carlson a “dick” (take that, mom!) but he wouldn’t dare touch the countless liberal dogmas on every subject that now control public and private life.

The American regime survives with the constant support of lies that would make Putin blush:

January 6 was an “insurrection” tantamount to the Civil War; if you don’t put your “trans” children on puberty blockers, they’ll kill themselves; George Floyd was a modern-day saint. Some of the biggest lies are lies of omission. President Biden is so decrepit he can barely function, but for three years America’s “free press” has looked the other way. It’s forbidden to discuss social inequality without defaulting to pernicious white racism as the explanation.

One of the biggest lies in circulation is that Hunter Biden, the poster child of American oligarchy, made millions of dollars through honest work in China and Ukraine, and his father, a conscientious and decent man, never saw a kickback. This is preposterous and the public doesn’t buy it, but the ruling class keeps pushing the story anyway. There’s a maudlin twist, too: Hunter is a sensitive soul, whose only crime is being vulnerable. His recent claim that the survival of our democracy depends on his recovery from drug addiction was only a slight exaggeration of the propaganda that Americans are fed on a daily basis.

Joe Biden is the embodiment of a decadent and rigid system at the end of its lifespan. Why would a government that allows its people to be murdered by foreign nationals, as recently happened in the Laken Riley case, care about the leader being senile and not quite legitimate? There is no “Plan B” for the Democrats because “Plan A” is the same as it ever was. A regime that lives by lies will just lie some more, and if that’s not enough, there’s always the hammer.

  As the intelligence, charm, and creativity of regime functionaries runs out, the  only tool left will be the heavy hand. This clumsiness is perhaps most obvious in the hands of the regime’s supposed wits. The likes of Jon Stewart are not even a little bit clever. His milquetoast observation that Trump and Biden are both old white men is typical of the superficial insight of an aging liberal contrarian. Trump is freer than Stewart because he says whatever he wants. Jon Stewart is only pretending to do what Trump does every single day.

Liberal posturing about “freedom” rings hollow when law-abiding people live in terror of saying the wrong thing or having an unlucky encounter with the criminal underclass, which arguably enjoys more liberty than anyone else. Whether he realizes it or not, Stewart is the very thing he accuses Carlson of being: a toady for an oligarchy, but one right here in America. His blithe defense of urban decay lets our own ruling class off the hook.

It probably won’t be long before he gives Biden his endorsement, or at least the benefit of a firm but gentle late-night ribbing. Our democracy is at stake, after all.