It’s hardly a secret that Donald Trump desperately wants to apply his name to things, but the president cares nearly as much about adding the word “gold” to assorted labels. Just over the course of the last year, for example, we’ve seen him emphasize everything from “Gold Cards” to a “Golden Dome” to the nation’s “golden age” (never mind the shiny curlicues he’s slapped up all over the Oval Office).
Once in a great while, though, the Republican finds a way to check both boxes simultaneously. My MS NOW colleague Erum Salam reported:
The United States will build new ‘Trump-class’ battleships as part of a ‘Golden Fleet,’ President Donald Trump announced Monday. […]
‘They’ll be the fastest, the biggest, and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built,’ Trump said at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. He was joined by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Navy Secretary John Phelan and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
So, on the one hand, we’re talking about a fleet that joins the president’s “golden” list while, on the other, Trump is also naming a class of battleships after himself. The White House promoted illustrations of the unbuilt ships featuring an emblem that centers Trump with a raised fist — a detail that reinforces concerns that this is less about national security and more about self-aggrandizement and self-glorification on the part of the president.
For those keeping score, Trump and his allies have now applied his name to the Kennedy Center and the Institute for Peace, unveiled a commemorative legal-tender coin that that will feature his face on both sides, and launched “Trump Gold Cards” and “Trump Accounts.” By some accounts, the president wants the upcoming White House ballroom to be named after him, too.
But wait, there’s more. Trump wants a football stadium in the nation’s capital to be named after him; the nation’s next-generation fighter jet will have an F-47 designation in honor of him (Trump is the nation’s 47th president); and training for incoming ICE agents was reduced from 50 days to 47 days for the same reason.
We are witnessing the personalization of the American government in real time, and it’s advancing at ridiculous speeds (albeit in ridiculous directions).
But this latest addition to the pattern is especially difficult to defend because it so plainly does not meet the nation’s needs. Mark Montgomery, a former rear admiral who is senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told The Wall Street Journal that the new “Golden Fleet” plan, with ships costing at least $5 billion each, is “exactly what we don’t need.” Montgomery said the new frigate has “zero tactical use” and that officials appear to be “focused on the president’s visual that a battleship is a cool-looking ship.” This isn’t how a global superpower is supposed to function. The administration’s plan is moving forward anyway.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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