This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

In a misadministration over burdened with bad ideas, this one surely takes the cake. Donald Trump wishes to build two new battleships. Let’s start with the most obvious stupid reason. Battleships were designed to fight other battleships, and since there are no other battleships, enough said. The reason they made battleships so huge in the first place was not to impress the folks at home or intimidate our adversaries. In order to be a stable gun platform for the 15- or 16-inch guns to be effective, the ship needed to be large to be stable. But since there will be no big guns, well, it speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

It once surprised me to learn in WW2, the Japanese Navy only had 76 destroyers in the entire fleet. For a European nation like Germany, that number would have been more than enough. But for an island nation like Japan, with its far-flung territories across the Pacific, it was a shockingly low figure. If ten ships were being refitted or overhauled at any one time, the number is down to 66. When Churchill needed destroyers, he asked for 50! Not ten or twenty, but fifty. That’s how important destroyers are to the fleet.

The Japanese had fallen into a trap. They couldn’t compete one for one with the US and Great Britain in battleships. So they decided to build two Mega super battleships. Yamato and Masashi, ships which epitomized the obsolescence of the battleship. Too valuable to risk in combat and so they remained tied off to the dock for most of the war. They might have built twenty or thirty destroyers instead. Or maybe they could have built something more useful, like three more aircraft carriers. The battleships were gas guzzling fuel hogs without any real purpose. That was eighty years ago, and today, Donald Trump and the pirates of Pennsylvania Ave. want to bring them back.

Chances are, these Trump class, golden turd, battleships will never be built. I noticed an absence of navy brass on hand for the grand announcement. Just the usual carpetbaggers, swindlers, political jellyfish, drunks and Trump. Just hang Trump’s name on it and they will buy it. What’s next, bringing back the longbow? Or men in suits of armor or chariots? “Soldier, what unit are you in?” The 157^th fighting Trebuchets sir! Trump division. Why not bring back the zeppelin, while we’re at it?

The Russia/Ukraine war has changed everything. Thanks to drones both air and sea, the Russian Black sea fleet has been bottled up and reduced without the ability to fire a shot in return. Suddenly, even 100-million-dollar airplane viability is being called into question. The other night, Ukraine attacked Moscow with a drone swarm. For the cost of $150,000 dollars, they did $500 million in damages.

The technology is amazing, as the lead drones were cheap plywood dummies. Some firing off chaff to blind the radars and others with radar deflectors to confuse the radars. To make the anti-aircraft units use up all of those super expensive missiles and overheat their machine gun barrels. Then the Russians turned on their electronic jamming warfare, but the drones switched to following the terrain with destinations pre-programmed into their GPS memory. And into this 21^st century computerized battlefield environment. Trump is going to bring back battleships.

A waste of money, for ships obsolete before their keel has even been laid. For ships, the Navy doesn’t want and doesn’t need. A dozen new destroyers or cruisers would be more effective. Let’s talk about names. Traditionally, battleships are named after states. Aircraft carriers after presidents and cruisers after cities. I believe we left off in World War two, with Alaska being the next battleship in line.

But Trump wants the ship named the USS Defiant, because building it defies all logic and common sense. And according to their plans, they wish to build 20 to 25 of these monstrosities. Already the flaws are apparent. 4 – 30-millimeter machine guns and 4- lasers against a 300-unit drone swarm and the outcome is obvious. Make that 24 -30-millimeter machine guns and a dozen lasers and maybe they would stand a chance. Ships without any advantage over current cruisers or destroyers except being big, big, big! Which, these days, isn’t really an advantage at all.

This is yet another of Trump’s grandiose dementia plagued ideas of a man going off half-cocked (Pun intended). The gray-haired guy in the Corvette trying to impress the girls. I’m still cool and virile. Look at me! Look at my big… ship! Huh, huh? To our adversaries, the effect is clear. Once they stop laughing at us, they will understand this country is being led by a madman.

But for Trump it’s all about gunboat diplomacy. So he needs more gunboats. Trump appoints a special envoy to Greenland and Denmark has called in our ambassador for an official rebuke. Next stop Brussels and the world court. Denmark has offered concessions on Greenland but no, only full ownership will do.

Already, the world is turning against the United Snakes. Japan is dumping 1.5 trillion in treasury notes and not buying anymore. The lack of tourism from our fifty-first state is being felt from Las Vegas to Florida. Condo prices have hit the skids. A distillery just shut down in Kentucky. China has found alternative sources for soybeans and pork. And it will only get worse.

Trump has recalled ambassadors from thirty countries because we don’t need them. They need us! The golden turd fleet will rule the waves. Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Who is the greatest of them all? And the answer is …not you! Due to an absence of crowd photography and the low volume, tinny sound of the low energy crowd I suspected the crowd in North Carolina to be small. You know, Trump Cuntry! Well. I received my confirmation from a news story where a dealer selling Trump merchandise had cut his prices on hats from $20 down to $5.00 dollars. And still he had no takers and so he packed up his wares and left before the rally was over.

Dementia Don is fading like cheap barn paint. Who knows, maybe it was telling the public the economy was doing really great when people are struggling. Maybe it was calling Epstein a hoax, while Trump drags his feet. Maybe knocking down the east wing of the White House without asking first. Maybe the concentration camps or ICE. Or maybe just his general lack of human empathy. Taking a moment at Christmas to ball out and yell at the American public for not appreciating him enough.

This was once said about Barry Goldwater, but I think it fits well. “In your guts, you know he’s nuts.”