From John Paul Jones to the Gulf of America: Trump’s Pier-Side Naval Academy Spectacle

A 250th-anniversary celebration at Norfolk turned campaign rally, complete with imaginary victories, renamed oceans, and the shadow hand of Stephen Miller

Trump’s Navy birthday party was supposed to be a sober celebration of 250 years at sea; instead, it sailed straight into Trump Harbor, where every ship is named after him and the tide only goes one way. The afternoon opened with the usual stadium soundtrack, patriotic bangers, a PA system allergic to silence, and Melania reading a polished tribute to sailors’ skill and sacrifice. Then the main act arrived to Lee Greenwood like a professional wrestler entering the ring, and any lingering hope of a conventional ceremony slipped overboard without a life vest.

He began as presidents often do, thanking sailors, invoking John Paul Jones, “Don’t give up the ship,” D-Day, Iwo Jima, dutifully working through the set list of naval legend, before immediately swerving into the part where the Navy’s greatest triumphs share top billing with… Donald J. Trump. The carriers around us, he assured the crowd, were “a combined 150,000 tons of pure American naval supremacy and two colossal reasons why no one should ever want to start a fight with the USA.” Fair enough, though within moments he was back to the soliloquy of Trump himself. “We’re putting out a lot of fights, though. Do you see that? We’re going to be close to number eight,” he said, like a man tallying up rounds of golf instead of wars. “We have another one that’s taken 3,000 years, and we’re pretty close, but I don’t want to talk about it until it’s done.” No citation, but plenty of confidence, as though the Navy’s 250th anniversary wasn’t about the fleet at all but about Trump single-handedly solving conflicts older than recorded history.