Jon Stewart and his writers were too smart to not get out ahead of the think-pieces.

On Wednesday a segment, The Daily Show: Destroyer of Worlds, satirised the habit of click-hungry news websites circulating links to the show's clips, along with the assertion that Stewart had once again "crushed", "destroyed", or "eviscerated" someone or other.

As the clip proceeded, Stewart showed how everything he had customarily targeted – Isis, racism, Fox News – was, well ... still there.

"The world", he concluded, "is demonstrably worse than when I started. Have I caused this?"

Embedded in that question was a wry admission: that the Daily Show's gags never were politics as such, but were almost entirely therapeutic. It provided solace as a nation's promise was perverted and squandered – especially during the Bush years.