Scott Adams’ passing on January 13, 2026, at age 68 is a solemn moment for anyone who valued plainspoken truth and the kind of satirical courage that made Dilbert an American institution. After a public battle with metastatic prostate cancer that he disclosed in May 2025, Adams spent his final days in hospice with family at his side, leaving a clear-eyed farewell for his fans.

Few cartoonists ever captured the petty tyranny of office life the way Adams did; Dilbert wasn’t fluff, it was a mirror that exposed managerial incompetence and bureaucratic absurdity to millions. The strip’s rise in the 1990s into thousands of newspapers reflected a national appetite for humor that told uncomfortable truths about work, authority, and common sense.

Adams didn’t stop at cartoons — he evolved into a provocative commentator who refused to let fashionable orthodoxies muzzle him, and that refusal cost him dearly in the era of cancel culture. After controversial remarks in 2023 led to syndication and publishing fallout, he nonetheless kept speaking to his audience directly and rebuilt his platform rather than apologize to the mob.

That resilience deserves respect. When establishment gatekeepers turned their backs, Adams moved Dilbert online and promised a spicier, more honest take that spoke to millions who were tired of being lectured by elites who never had to work a real job. His decision to keep creating rather than grovel became an example for the rest of us: don’t cede the culture to cowards.

In his final public days he was candid about his illness and even reached out for help when a newly approved treatment was delayed, calling out a health-care system that often lets patients down. His plea — made public in late 2025 — and the frank way he discussed dying reminded the country that being famous doesn’t exempt anyone from the frustrations Americans face when institutions fail.

Conservative leaders and free-speech champions rightly paid tribute to Adams as a major cultural force who tilted at windmills and refused to be softened by the media’s appetite for character assassination. Voices from across the movement recognized that his real offense was refusing to bow to groupthink, not a lack of talent or an absence of moral complexity.

Let’s be blunt: the left’s willingness to cancel someone who made an entire generation laugh about the absurdities of corporate life is a scandal of priorities. We should remember Scott Adams for his contributions to American humor, for challenging the comfortable, and for showing younger creators that the marketplace of ideas is worth defending even when it’s inconvenient. (Opinion, of course, but rooted in the facts of how his career unfolded and how he chose to respond.)

Adams signed off with a simple request — be useful and pay forward whatever good you received — and that message deserves to outlive the predictable punditry surrounding his final days. For patriots who love free expression and honest satire, honoring Scott Adams means keeping that spirit alive: make something real, speak plainly, and don’t let the cancelers write the final chapter of our culture.