Jon Stewart has more than enough money to just quit, which he did.
Celebrity is often its own reward. And Stewart wasn’t getting much coverage when he didn’t have a show, despite some very sincere and fervent lobbying efforts during his retirement period.
No real free speech, no real agency in our economy, captive regulators that like to masquerade as populist heros but rarely actually do any real damage to sociopathic corporations.
One of the more infuriating bits about liberal agitprop shows is how fucking devoid of agitprop they actually are. Yeah, guys like Stewart and Colbert and Oliver can go on rhetorical tirades about the Big Evil Business Thing. But when push comes to shove, what do they actually advocate? Noncompliance? Organized revolt? A general strike? Confrontations with abusive and cartelized law enforcement? Any kind of material self-defense or defense of one’s friends and neighbors? Anything that might violate the latest round of right-wing prohibitions on health care or gender or speech?
Or do they just put on a “Rally to Restore Sanity” that tells people activism begins and ends with voting, in an election system that’s increasingly threadbare?