MaddowBlog-Trump names battleship class after himself, advancing his personalization crusade

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Sticking his name on everything is especially difficult to defend as it so plainly does little to meet the nation’s needs.

The personalization of government is advancing at ridiculous speeds:
- Trump-class battleships
- Trump’s name added to Kennedy Center, Institute for Peace
- legal-tender coin featuring Trump’s face (on both sides)
- Trump Gold Cards
- Trump Accounts
- F-47 fighter jets
- 47-day ICE training

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-12-23T14:04:44.654Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-names-battleship-class-after-himself-advancing-his-personalization-crusade

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 in the course of the past year, for example, we’ve seen him emphasize everything from “Gold Cards” to a “Golden Dome” to a “Golden Age” for the nation. (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.

Trump Class battleship illustration, as released by the White House.

— Steve Herman (@newsguy.bsky.social) 2025-12-22T22:55:14.884Z

For those keeping score, Trump and his allies have now applied his name to the Kennedy Center and the Institute of 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 (he is the nation’s 47th president); and training for incoming Immigration and Customs Enforcement 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 (and in ridiculous directions).....

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.

[Cha]

1. I can only Hop this BackFires and Soon

on this Demented "Speed" Freak!

[BOSSHOG]

2. THE USS PEDOPHILE?

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8. LOL

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11. This made me smile

[Ocelot II]

3. What he really wants:

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4. These ships will never be built

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5. "Even Putin doesn't name classes of ships after himself. Kim Jong-un doesn't name -- I mean this is crazy,"

Link to tweet

?s=20

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6. Here are some previews of trump's new "battleship"

The internet has been hard at work coming up with designs for trump's new battleships

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

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7. A friend posted this on facebook

This is from a retired naval officer

The following was posted by Gary Clamurro, a retired Navy captain who I have known for over 40 years:

The Administration has announced the launch of a new class of 'old' naval vessels: the Trump Class Battleship. Is this a wise development for projecting US Naval power?

Disclaimer: Y'all will recall that my first assignment in the USN was on a ballistic missile submarine where stealth and silence meant survival at sea.

Big beautiful 'Gold' battleships are a sea animal whose time has passed. From the time of Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet (white because they were painted white, not for any other reason), nearly 120 years ago, the battleship was meant to be a visible projection of national power. Naval Air power at the end of WW II ended the era of the battleship. They are indeed big and visible and easily targeted on the 21st Century battle space at sea. Not good. We have tactical strategies in place to keep our large aircraft carriers out of harms way, and to mitigate the effectiveness of our adversaries' hypersonic missiles. The USN would need to do the same for each battleship.

The best fleet, the most deadly fleet, is the one that you cannot see, the one you cannot track, the one you cannot hear. The one that you cannot know when it is just off your coast and ready to launch hundreds of cruise, guided and ballistic missiles. Of course, every once and a while you need to demonstrate the deadly power of such weapons platforms: ask the Iranians about the effectiveness of 30 or 40 submarine launched cruise missiles.

And you don't have to sink a battleship (or any ship, for that matter) to take it out of commission. A well positioned Electro Magnetic Pulse near a vessel would destroy its electronics capabilities and render the ship useless for combat.

In a war at sea between or among nations with such EMP capabilities, size doesn't matter. There will be ship casualties. In my thinking it is better to have more vessels (especially submarines) than a few Big Beautiful Battleships.

Just saying.

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9. No American president has ever named ships or institutions after himself--until now

Link to tweet

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10. New battleships named after Trump are 'bomb magnets' -- and will never sail: expert

This battleship makes no sense and will never be built

New battleships named after Trump are 'bomb magnets' — and will never sail: expert

www.rawstory.com/alternet-pos...

— (@bobshaw-28.bsky.social) 2025-12-26T21:50:29.523Z

https://www.rawstory.com/alternet-posts/trump-battleship/

Donald Trump's much-hyped new battleship fleet, named after himself, "will never sail," a group of experts told CNBC in a new report, owing to the outdated design that will make them a "bomb magnet" in a real conflict.

Earlier this week, the president unveiled a new "Trump-class" of US Navy battleships, which he touted as "some of the most lethal surface warfare ships" and "the fastest, the biggest, and by far, 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built." Despite his enthusiasm from Trump about maintaining "American military supremacy," CNBC on Friday noted the "glaring problem" putting them at odds with reality: "battleships have been obsolete for decades."

"The last was built more than 80 years ago, and the U.S. Navy retired the last Iowa-class ships nearly 30 years ago," CNBC explained. "Once symbols of naval might with their massive guns, battleships have long since been eclipsed by aircraft carriers and modern destroyers armed with long-range missiles."

The outlet conceded that Trump's labeling of these new ships with the outdated model name could be a "misnomer," and the actual ships might be more in line with modern sensibilities. Speaking to several experts about the ships, however, CNBC found that the "Trump-class" fleet is still out of step with naval realities, with Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, arguing that they "would take too long to design, cost far too much and run counter to the Navy’s current strategy of distributed firepower."

"A future administration will cancel the program before the first ship hits the water," Cancian said, also adding that "there is little need for said discussion because this ship will never sail."