According to Stephen Diehl, writing on his blog, twenty twenty-six has become what he calls 'the Bad Place'—a reference to the TV show where an engineered paradise turns out to be hell. Diehl argues the absurdities have become ordinary: a U.S. president trading memecoins from the White House, a federally licensed exchange accepting bets on whether the military will assassinate foreign leaders, and shadow dollar systems quietly consolidating global savings onto private balance sheets. Each phenomenon alone, he says, would be dystopian science fiction; together they're just the news cycle.

Listen to this story

Hear this and more stories in a personalized audio briefing.

Open The Chonkerton