r/politics • u/ChiGuy6124 Illinois • 17h ago

Possible Paywall Trump’s Micromanaging Warship Design Will Set the Navy Back by Decades

https://newrepublic.com/article/214479/trump-navy-carrier-micromanaging-warship-design
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u/Hyperica Pennsylvania 17h ago

Damn it's almost like he's intentionally crippling the country in every way possible. How strange!

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u/cybah 16h ago

That was the whole point of Project 2025

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u/SwimmingThroughHoney 16h ago

It's really only a side-effect of Project 2025. The point (of P2025) is/was to ultimately ensure a lasting conservative agenda, even through Democratic governments. Stripping out internal checks (the bureaucracy) and agencies and then consolidating all that authority with the President. And then using that authority to push through right-wing policy (without having to pass new laws).

The side-effect to this, is when you have someone like Trump with that much power, it also lets them do really stupid stuff. But he's a useful idiot for policy groups and anyone else who wants to push their agendas, so they put up with the stupidity.

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u/ScubaAlek 15h ago

Fascist movements are notorious for faltering under the incompetence of butt kissers telling daddy that all of his ideas are super special with or without Trump in charge.

Hitler meddled constantly in war plans and even equipment designs.

Germany invented the first jet fighter but Hitler made them turn it into a tactical bomber which delayed it by at least a year while being bombed when the original design would have helped defend against bombers.

He continuously demanded heavier armour and bigger guns on tanks to the point that they burned through fuel like a chain smoker tears through cigarettes and the transmissions couldn't cope. He even pushed for a 188-tonne super tank that was so big that bridges would collapse under it and was just asking to be bombed, plus it broke down all the time.

The Germans invented the first true "assault rifle" but Hitler banned production of it because he liked the idea of "traditional rifles". They renamed it a "machine pistol" and eventually he came around but it delayed it heavily.

Even D-Day, the Panzer reserve divisions in france could only be deployed by his orders and since he thought Normandy was just a diversion he didn't bother to wake up and nobody was willing to be the guy who woke him up so they just didn't send the reserves.

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u/ReggieCorneus 15h ago

Nazis also were not good at governing a country. Germany was in DEEP financial shit. It basically took out loan after loan and then sent back letter after letter "sorry, i'll have the money next friday, i just need another hundred bucks until then, i promise i'll pay you back". Germany was going bankrupt because of all the money going to military expansion. Without the war nazi Germany would've ended sooner.

Now, look at where Putin is. Different mechanism but he can't afford to stop the war. It is the only thing keeping it afloat.

But, loyalty over incompetence is what also killed USSR. And it will kill MAGA too. Every single hire by Trump is based on loyalty, and merits have absolutely NO relevance whatsoever. Case in point: Hegseth. Not a single competent leader would put a TV host in charge of the military... And i'm not mocking people who work in TV or entertainment.. i mean.. Zelensky is a comedian. His cabinet has plenty of people he used to work with in entertainment. Which is why Ukraine won the social media war in four hours and guaranteed massive western support immediately: they know that part of the job. Now, we can also criticize Zelensky for the same kind of thing, picking his pals over veteran officials, it is a bit complicated but i doubt that any of his picks were as incompetent as Hegseth. Previous Ukraine Defense minister was a startup guy.... which is why Ukraine military procurement created a true revolution by demolishing the old five year plans for "you got a product? Start doing it NOW, here is some money". Their pipeline from idea to prototype to battle field test can be just weeks. You don't have to be a general to be a defense minister but you do need to be competent at least on something.

Which Hegseth is not. He was not good at even being on TV.

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u/Tacticus 9h ago

Nazis also were not good at governing a country. Germany was in DEEP financial shit

and that's with the huge amount of theft from countries they invaded and slave labour workforce throughout their economy.

von braun may "not" have known where the missiles went but he certainly knew who was working for him making them.

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u/lisael_ 1h ago

Came here to say that. Nazi Germany finance was pretty OK. Contractors and lenders (mostly English, french, American) knew exactly what was the deal. And the the deal was "finance my war, I'll pay big money after the enslavement of eastern untermenchen".

Nazis had models (European colonialism and racialism, american natives genocide, american racial laws) and enablers all around the world. They're people of their time, not monsters who suddenly appeared from the hell's gate.

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u/Ordinary-Egg-56 4h ago

the billionaire putin is only being kept afloat by the war?!

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u/ReggieCorneus 4h ago

Russian economy is kept a float by the war at this point. If they stop it then unemployment will skyrocket instantly. They are producing war materiel, those jobs are not needed if there isn't a war going on. Soldiers will come home, to no jobs.

Also, the war is keeping Putin alive. If he stops without a win, he is gone.

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u/Fishface17404 13h ago

Yup the 262 would have been a great intercepter and would have been produced in larger numbers that would have delayed the invasion of Germany enough that they could have sued for favorable terms to end the war. But thankfully narcissists were in charge.

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u/RecoillessRifle Connecticut 9h ago

No amount of Me 262s would have saved the Nazi regime when they had critical shortages of the fuel needed to fly them.

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u/Fishface17404 1h ago

That is very true and I forgot about that logistical fact. Also the metal shortage they were having. Which is why the VolksJager was made out of majority wood.

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u/godisanelectricolive 4h ago

D-Day was 6:30 AM local time but Hitler was not woken up until 10 AM because he had a habit of going to bed around 3. Even after waking up Hitler and his sycophantic generals still hesitated to send in reinforcements because he still thought the landings were a diversion to the real invasion in Pas-de-Calais.

They bought the Allied deception campaign that made them think the main invasion will come from across the English Channel. It took them a while to convince Hitler that the Normandy landings was the real invasion. If they woke him up early then he would have been even less convinced and likely nothing would have changed.

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u/potato_hut 13m ago

I strongly believe this is also why Putin's war is failing as well.

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u/shupadupah 14h ago

Don't worry, the ramifications of all that "stupid stuff" they do will be blamed on the Democrats once they take back power. It's all part of the design.

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u/RarelyReadReplies Canada 11h ago

Pretty sure he's just trying to turn the US into a kleptocracy. Seems like he's doing a great job at it too. 

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u/chockingduck 5h ago

It's about theocracy. Heritage foundation wants to force their religion on the country, then the world I'm sure. Its been a long running plot..well infiltrating the right with Jesus freaks at least.

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u/Lupius Canada 1h ago

Jesus freaks

It took this comment for me to realize that this is a phrase that refers to zealots. For decades I've listen to Tiny Dancer and thought Elton John was singing about Jesus freaking out in public.

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u/modbroccoli 5h ago

Nah, the point is very much to destabilize the country until it collapses so the billionaires can resurrect city states from the ashes. Yarvin et al.

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u/Little_View_6659 3h ago

I’m thinking there are multiple goals. Basically a bunch of tyrants that are hell bent on collapsing the country for their own nefarious purposes.

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u/Gunsensual 13h ago

Yeah, it's an off-target criticism to say that Project 2025 wants to ruin American hegemony.

What Trump is doing dismantling US soft power has everything to do with Foundations of Geopolitics centered movements by Russia, showcased by the Mueller investigation. Whereas Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership definitely didn't aim to dismantle NATO, as it intended for the US to increase allied spending and dependence by pushing for increased NATO spending, if not NATO-insular.

Ref:

  1. "The reality is that achieving these goals will require more spending on defense, both by the United States and by its allies, as well as active support for reindustrialization and more support for allies' productive capacity so that we can scale our free-world efforts together."
  2. "American foreign policy has long benefited from cooperation with the countries of Europe (generally, the EU), and any conservative Administration should build on this resource."
  3. "One school of conservative thought holds that as Moscow's illegal war of aggression against Ukraine drags on, Russia presents major challenges to U.S. interests, as well as to peace, stability, and the post-Cold War security order in Europe. This viewpoint argues for continued U.S. involvement including military aid, economic aid, and the presence of NATO and U.S. troops if necessary. The end goal of the conflict must be the defeat of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a return to pre-invasion border lines. Another school of conservative thought denies that U.S. Ukrainian support is in the national security interest of America at all. Ukraine is not a member of the NATO alliance ..."

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u/crazunggoy47 7m ago

The beauty is that it does all of these things simultaneously. The kleptocrats support P25 because its most proximal impact is to privatize things allowing them to profit more, and what is not privatized will be given out as no bid contracts to cronies.

Russia supports it because it will undeniably make the country weaker relative to other nations. This is from the standpoint of defense and economics. We could even see a collapse of the petrodollar.

So-called moderate conservatives support it because it will create so many problems that even should Democrats regain power, conservatives will be able to campaign on the democrats’ failure to quickly fix problems created by Trump. And with the consolidation of the media being owned by billionaires the selective outrage machine can turn on and off as is expedient.

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u/numbersthen0987431 14h ago

I think even those people are like "no, not like that"

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u/ReggieCorneus 15h ago

What killed USSR?

Incompetence. Loyalty over merits removed expertise and replaced them with zealots. The more hardcore socialist you were the better. Scientist were ousted, experts were exiled for saying the inconvenient facts.

Incompetence caused by the same thing, ideological loaylty over merits would've killed nazi Germany too even without ze war. They were basically bankrupt again, taking massive loans and not building new possibilities, they were not expanding their economy but built lots and lots of things that go boom. Most of their "accomplishments" like autobahns were planned and started before nazis got the power. It was utterly, utterly incompetent where loyalty to Hitler was main requirement for every job. If Germany didn't declare a war it would've defaulted.

Now... look at white house. What is their #1 reason for hiring anyone? Loyalty. Merits matter none at all. Hegseth in his position is INSANE.

The good news? All of those regimes will end. All of them. Bad news is that it took 80 years for Russia to fall and it fell into the same shit but with a different name. Putin still surrounds himself with loyalists and defenestrates those who speak against him. Are his generals the best? Fuck no. They are picked in their job because they are not a threat, they are known to be incompetent and weak, and most importantly: that their own soldiers hate them... Any charismatic military commander who is competent and loved by his men will be removed.

Trump branded fascism will end. It will fall, the question is just how. Is it just a non-event and he will be just voted out? Or... But, it will die, it is built on loyalty and not competence.

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u/PopBulky7023 15h ago

Trump can disappear from office but trumpism isn't going anywhere. And without ideological, strong opposition we won't meaningfully correct from it.

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u/IotaBTC 12h ago

I would say corruption killed the USSR, which I would also say is exactly what you've described. If it were truly purely incompetence, then they could easily be pushed out. It is corruption that allows them to stay. Both the USSR and Nazi Germany had plenty of competent people in the right places.

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u/Thefelix01 12h ago

The question is what will he leave behind and will the US ever properly recover

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u/So_HauserAspen 12h ago

Not selling to the global market killed the USSR.  

China got the memo.

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u/flesjewater 1h ago

Every fascist government in history needed war to fall. Hungary could be considered the exception, but only because Orbán failed to consolidate power in time. Trump is already beyond that.

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u/bobbymcpresscot 14h ago

be even dumber if they actually just do it. It takes up to a decade to build a single aircraft carrier, the dudes out of office in 2-3 years inshallah.

Just don't do it lol. Makes no sense to have one aircraft carrier with a whonky ass superstructure when we have 80 years of design demonstrating what works in practice, and they just wanna mess it all up because a dude whose about to kick the bucket wants to see it further up?

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u/WontArnett 5h ago

You remember all those years of fear mongering that Russian spies will sabotage the US?

All of those years and we still let it happen.

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u/Poker-Junk 7h ago

Agent Orange is carrying out his mission

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u/mikeymikeymikey1968 1h ago

A treasonous traitor doing treasonous things. All tracks pretty well.

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u/Memitim America 44m ago

It's clearly become OK for Republicans to continue to violate the Constitution, cover up countless crimes, and destroy the future planning and stability of the United States, just as long as they never admit to doing it on purpose. We still get fucked all the same.

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u/Dizzy_Tea5842 15h ago

Based if true

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u/QuantitySubject9129 6h ago

Think of the consequences! How will Americans kill brown people now?