Ishaan Tharoor mocks the Pentagon’s Paul brothers video: “Idiocracy, now”
Washington Post columnist, writing Today’s WorldView, on his X account
“Idiocracy, now”
Source and context
Original post
About this source
Tharoor quote-posted the Defense Department's video captioned "Last Thursday, we welcomed Logan and Jake Paul to the Pentagon to meet with our warriors," making the Pentagon's presentation of the visit the identifiable target of his remark. Read on 2026-09-22 through api.fxtwitter.com, which shows the text, the quoted post, and the timestamp (17:22:35 UTC), consistent with the timestamp decoded from the post ID.
Before the quotation
Tharoor quote-posted the Defense Department’s official video showing Jake and Logan Paul speaking from the Pentagon briefing-room lectern, captioned “Last Thursday, we welcomed Logan and Jake Paul to the Pentagon to meet with our warriors.”
After the quotation
Other X users made the same Idiocracy comparison separately; Tharoor’s two-word reply added no further explanation.
How this statement is classified
Responding to: The Pentagon’s presentation of Jake and Logan Paul as speakers reflected unserious institutional judgment.
The label describes this statement’s response within the context above.
Why this label?
Relative to the fixed case reference point—the Pentagon’s decision to host and publicly showcase the brothers addressing service members—Tharoor’s comparison to Idiocracy, a film depicting a dumbed-down future society, mocks the Pentagon’s judgment in staging the video. That is a negative judgment of the department’s choice, in the same register as Kinzinger's, DeFranco's and Nichols's brief mocking replies to the same video.
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Was the Pentagon right to host Jake and Logan Paul and have them address service members?
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