Bad solutions for the wrong “problems.” It’s what we do now.

We have servicemen jumping overboard as a war we started in the Middle East for no good reason drags on with subpar troop conditions and no diplomatic or military endgame. So naturally, on Thursday the president took steps to rip out billions of dollars of launch systems on our aircraft carriers and reinstall steam catapults.

I don’t blame you if you think I feel for a story from The Onion. I was honestly sure this was The Onion when I saw the headline.

Are we sure steam will be good enough? Is there a catapult system that runs on Red Bull and testosterone? Could we save some money by keeping the existing system and finding a way to inject it with bleach?

Not that you’re surprised to hear that electromagnetic technology has come under suspicion from the same man who can’t grasp the basic idea of a battery.

However, you might be surprised to learn that this is not a new fixation of the angrier and more addled Second-Term Trump. POTUS was going on about this in public back in 2017.

The only upside here is a thin excuse for an R.E.M. break. Join me, won’t you?

Wouldn’t you like to know the who and when of how this idea got planted in Trump’s brain? I would. Someone is going to make a whole lot of money by manipulating the president’s perspective.

Well, “someone new” would be more accurate. The latest in a long line. The big, beautiful thing about an entirely narcissistic POTUS is that he attracts not just grifters and fringe kooks but also regular old capitalists who know an easy mark when they see one. It’s only taxpayer money, after all.

The death of expertise doesn’t begin to describe what this administration is doing to expertise. You know Secretary Hegseth wasn’t about to get in the way of this latest folly. Harder, Dumber, Faster has been the unofficial motto of the Department of Defense for many months now. Just ask what used to be a school full of Iranian children.

At least Senator Mark Kelly — former test pilot with a Masters in aeronautical engineering — was quick to chip in with some reality-based criticism.

At the end of the day, even when we cannot stop the stupid, it is important to call out the stupid so people keep recognizing it as such (and recognizing its perpetrators as such). It’s not a fix, but it’s a service in the name of a less stupid future. Until then …

“I don’t know how to break the news, but
It’s pretty clear you’ll be asked to choose between
What you lack and what you excuse …”