The real challenge in writing about Jon Stewart’s announcement that he’s leaving the Daily Show is the fact that every time you think you’ve seen the perfect hysterical reaction from the left, someone else tops it. I was sure that when the Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty tweeted yesterday that “For people under 30, Jon Stewart leaving the Daily Show is the equivalent of the Beatles breaking up,” the silliness had already reached its apex. But of course, I was the silly one for thinking that.

Because then I was directed toward the New York Times front page, where the Stewart news and the news about NBC’s Brian Williams being suspended (for apparently fabricating war stories) shared a headline: “Williams Suspended, at Low Point in His Career; Stewart to Depart at High Point.” But that absurdity, too, could be improved upon. You might think it’s unfair to Williams–who was an actual news anchor, on a network news program–to be lumped in with the comedian who hosts a clip show of actual news reports to make fun of them. But that’s not how the news media themselves saw it. CNN’s Christiane Amanpour highlighted the shared headline and tweeted:

There really was something amazing about that comment. Stewart became enormously successful by showing clips of people like Amanpour and then making faces at the camera. Yet Amanpour readily suggests that it’s the comedian, and not the network news anchor, who has “authority” to speak on the issues of the day. It tells you something not just about Stewart, but about the media in general.

In that sense, the Williams suspension really does belong in the same breath as the Stewart departure, at least as far as the press is concerned. If reports are true, they’re both satirizing, in their own way, the news. One of them is just being open about it. And it is the fake newsman who is truly admired, because his fake news confirms the left’s ideological predispositions. It does not seem to dawn on liberals what follows from this: the fact that to bring their worldview in line with the news, it has to be fabricated.

Stewart is a form of escapism, then, for the left. But he’s been around so long, and become such an “authority” (at least according to CNN; keep that in mind for future reference), that they stopped escaping into his reality for a half hour a night and instead simply moved there. At some point during the Bush administration, the left simply decamped and took up permanent residence in StewartWorld–a world that Stewart himself, repeatedly, stressed was fake.

But you could also see how they could be fooled. Stewart put real effort into creating this false reality. For example, one of the most controversial interviews Stewart conducted was with Jonah Goldberg. It was not controversial because Goldberg is conservative; it was controversial because the interview ran long and Stewart handed the tape over to Edward Scissorhands to edit. The resulting mashup was choppy and disconcerting, and it turned out that that was because Stewart had to stack the deck. “Largely left on the cutting-room floor,” Goldberg explained later, “were some important points that might have made my book seem a bit more nuanced.”

If you’ve watched the Daily Show over the years you’ll understand why Stewart did that. A fair fight is one that leaves Stewart at a deep disadvantage. John Yoo, Cliff May, and other conservatives ran circles around Stewart when he brought them on the show. (May famously left Stewart so punch drunk the staggering host called Harry Truman a war criminal, for which he apologized soon after.)

Now compare what Stewart did to Goldberg with how he treated Elizabeth Warren on her first appearance on the Daily Show. Warren was nervous and unprepared, as this Vox piece explains:

And her nervousness shows — she hesitates before she answers, and she even forgets the name of a TARP program she herself was trying to explain to him. In her memoir, Warren herself characterizes the first part of the interview as “terrible.”

So what did Stewart do? He “rearranged his show to give her more time,” and coached her on her messaging. Of course he did.

It became a well-known accepted fact, at least among non-leftists brave enough to be interviewed for sketches on the show, that the Daily Show producers simply re-cut interviews dishonestly in order to make it look like their marks said ridiculous or offensive things. (Here’s a column on it from Bloomberg’s Megan McArdle titled “Don’t Ever Appear on ‘The Daily Show’.”)

So what do liberals do now that, about a decade after running out of jokes, Stewart’s throwing in the towel? There will be a period of mourning, sure. But in the long run, it has to be helpful for them to be forced out of the StewartWorld and back into reality. (Comedy Central may try replacing him, but as the reactions to Stewart’s departure show–“the Beatles,” etc.–StewartWorld requires Stewart to possess its full force and “authority.”) My hope is that we’ll see a transformation similar to what happened to the Truman Show’s lead when he realizes it’s all fake and there’s a whole (real) world out there. Perhaps they’ll challenge the limits of the biodome they’ve called home and venture out in search of the truth.

Or maybe it’ll be too much for them. But I think even if they struggle at first, they’ll adjust. The real world can be exhausting for a follower of Jon Stewart, but it’s worth the effort.