In a blast from the past, Trump wants a new 'golden fleet' of 'Trump class' battleships

News and views for Floridians and other discerning Americans concerned about the future of our country

No sooner had I published a newsletter yesterday ridiculing Donald Trump’s penchant for naming everything in God’s creation after himself, than he announced he was launching a new “Trump class” line of battleships.

I won’t dwell on the pathetic derangement that compels him to plaster his last name over everything.

Unless Democrats can retake Congress—assuming we have elections next year—it wouldn’t surprise me if there isn’t forthcoming legislation requiring all of us to change our last names to Trump.

And even that wouldn’t be enough to satisfy His Neediness.

But let’s move on to this battleship stuff.

There’s a reason why the U.S. Navy stopped building them after World War II: They had become obsolete.

Battleships trace their heritage from the days of sailing ships, and in their era were the most formidable force on the seas, bristling with powerful cannons in an age when gunpowder was the most fearsome weapon ever invented.

Then the Wright brothers invented the airplane, and that changed everything.

For the price of one battleship, you can build hundreds of jet fighters that can deliver more destructive force faster and further than any heavily armored floating can in the sea.

It’s why our naval strategy is built around aircraft carriers.

Which is why the Navy decided to scrap its lumbering battleships in favor of carriers and fast missile cruisers years ago.

Even if Trump’s new battleships are armed with missiles—which would be the only way they would make any sense at all—we could build multiple smaller, fleeter missile-capable cruisers for every battleship.

A few years back, I spent some time aboard a U.S. Navy submarine as part of a tour of American military installations, and I asked what the submariners called surface ships like this. The answer:

“Targets.”

That’s the problem with building multi-billion-dollar warships. They’re so expensive, you have to waste valuable resources defending them.

The same could be said about aircraft carriers, of course, but they come with their own umbrella of defending aircraft and a battlegroup of protective ships and subs.

Still, aircraft carriers are also sitting ducks in the sea against a missile barrage no matter how effective anti-aircraft and anti-missile defenses are. And there have been many conversations questioning the future of carriers in an age of missiles.

But battleships? We need to give our enemies more targets, do we?

What’s behind this?

Trump has complained for years that our warships are “terrible looking.”

Which explains everything. It’s not about purpose, it’s about image. How do you make a battleship prettier? Well, you emblazon it with an image of Trump. To wit:

Yes! This is the ship Trump showed in announcing his new “Trump class,” the one with his face plastered on the stern of the ship.

That’s how you make a warship look great again. You put Trump’s face on it.

Related:

Tour of Duty: Inside America’s Armed Forces

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J.C. Bruce is the founder of Tropic Press, a website and newsletter dedicated to Floridians and issues of concern to them. He’s a native of the state and an award-winning journalist and author.

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