Idiocracy realized with the FTX Scandal

The 2006 science fiction comedy has come true.

President Camacho in Idiocracy.

Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX, sleeping on a beanbag at his trading desk—a habit that was interpreted as evidence of his quirky genius.

By John Leake

A lot of people find excuses for not listening to Tucker Carlson. Those who identity themselves as Democrats reflexively dismiss his commentary because they have long identified him as the foremost spokesman of the other political tribe, which they regard with enmity and contempt. Others with no partisan affiliation regard Mr. Carlson as too given to sarcasm and withering in his attacks on Democrats.

I don’t identity with either political party, so I can evaluate Mr. Carlson’s commentary purely on its factual merits. I don’t regularly watch his show, but I occasionally receive links to one of his segments from a friend or family member. Several times I have fact-checked his reporting, and very rarely have I found a mistake.

His reporting on the FTX scandal is the most extraordinary thing I have ever seen or read about in my forty years of studying history. The true story he tells strikes me as the highest summit of absurdity ever reached.

Since 2000, we have seen a steady train of massive frauds committed by our political-financial-and military establishments—always with the mainstream media cheering on the fraudsters. Instead of wising up, much of the public seems ever more gullible, always willing to buy into the latest scam, in spite of it being an obvious scam to anyone of ordinary prudence who conducts twenty minutes of due diligence.

In every instance, the beneficiaries of the scam are big money interests who stand to gain billions, and it’s always the ordinary working and middle class citizenry that’s left holding the bag. Because the Treasury and Federal Reserve provide the bailout funds—creating ever more trillions of debt liability—the citizenry doesn’t immediately feel the pinch. The can is kicked down the road, staving off reality for another few years.

Future generations will doubtless suffer the inevitable catastrophe that will ensue from debt and inflation, but for now, the analgesic of magically-generated funds prevents us from feeling the pain. And as the old stoics used to say, pain is the greatest teacher. Without it, we never learn.

As a student of history and a true crime investigator, I have always endeavored to understand human behavior instead of dismissing it as stupid. Attributing events to mass stupidity strikes me as a poor interpretive framework that cannot yield insight.

However, the FTX scandal leaves me bereft of any other explanation. An alarmingly large proportion of our citizenry is now indistinguishable from the hopeless suckers that populate Idiocracy.

Tucker Carlson’s reporting on FTX reminded me of President Camacho’s State of the Union address. The bizarre world presented in Carlson’s true FTX reporting is virtually identical to that depicted in the 2006 comedy.