Ishaan Tharoor
Role at the time: Washington Post columnist, writing Today’s WorldView, on his X account
Condemned
Response to this claim
The Pentagon’s presentation of Jake and Logan Paul as speakers reflected unserious institutional judgment.
“Idiocracy, now”
Read the original post (opens in a new tab)Ishaan Tharoor response to the Pentagon’s Paul brothers video · The Wall Street JournalX post ID 2101723710121992697, quoting the Defense Department video
Why we used this label
On 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.