This excerpt from Jon Stewart’s acceptance speech winning the Mark Twain Price for Comedy in 2022;

Stewart’s insight rings ever true now, as America takes a step back from the edge from fear and warmongering and nativism and selfishness, and looks forward to the big work we have to do,

“
When a society is under threat,

comedians are the ones who get sent away first.

It’s just a reminder to people that

democracy is under threat.

Authoritarians are the threat to comedy, to art, to music,

to thought, to poetry, to progress, to all those things.

It ain’t the pronoun police.

It’s the secret police.

It always has been, and it always will be.

[A simple] reminder to all of us

that what we have is fragile and precious

and the way to guard against it

isn’t to change how audiences think,

it’s to change how leaders lead.
“