This evolution was shocking to me. Maher had established a hard-earned reputation for being a smug, profane, Godless liberal who (a decade ago) called Sarah Palin the c-word and made a derogatory joke about her son. Next, he made a $1 million donation to a super PAC supporting Barack Obama’s re-election. But times have changed, and the same irreverence that made Maher a frustrating adversary has made him a uniquely brave ally.

No, Maher hasn’t become a conservative Republican. Not yet, anyway—and probably, not ever. “I’m an old-school liberal,” he said again this week. But he has serious problems with today’s illiberal, intolerant left. And as a conservative, I think he’s right.

In a sense, though, Maher is a conservative—in the sense that he wants to conserve what used to be known as liberalism. But whereas most liberals and conservatives come across boring and antiquated in these radical, post-liberal, times, Maher reminds us that liberalism is the real revolutionary act.