P. J. O'Rourke, 1947-2022
PJ was part of my holy trinity of American political satirists when I was in high school/college (PJ, Hunter S Thompson, Molly Ivins)*  and to this day I have yet to encounter any current satirists who CONSISTENTLY come close.  Part of it I suspect is that our political terrain is such a goat rodeo, and that the kind of caustic humor these folks espoused (often thumbing their noses at any number of conventions) that today would get them promptly dragged, but their insights into the zeitgeist was at the time, intensely engrossing.* I also revered Twain and Mencken, but PJ/HST/MI were contemporaries and in my time, which carried a more visceral stamp to them.