[A]t some point, when you see liberals share the same videos week after week of an annoying British man sneering down a camera lens to tell you how stupid everyone else is, you do have to ask if the American left-of-center has any sense at all of how much their project has been damaged by their reputation for patronizing self-righteousness. If the Trump era has proven anything, it’s just how wildly sensitive voters are to the perception that someone somewhere is judging them. That level of sensitivity to vague slights is stupid and the grievance usually disingenuous, but that’s politics, baby. And Oliver is such a pitch-perfect caricature of progressive self-regard - snarky, aloof, judgmental, incurious - that I sometimes wonder if his show is a brilliant op pulled off by the Heritage Foundation.

Freddie DeBoer