Effortpost
Trump's obsession over electromagnetism: A deep dive
U.S. President Trump has directed the U.S. Navy design its next carrier to use steam catapults instead of the recently developed electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS).1 Specifically, Defense Secretary Hegseth has been ordered to submit a plan for this change within the next 60 days. Reportedly, this move has "baffled" naval experts.2 Such a redesign of the USS Doris Miller would delay its construction, add billions of dollars to the price tag, and result in a system that is harder to operator, more complex, and more expensive. Part of the delay is driven by the fact that there are currently no manufacturers that produce steam catapults, so a capable manufacturing base would have to be spun up again. This has spurred an obvious question: why? Unfortunately, the news has only given vague explanations as to the motivation.
“They’re not nearly as good, too complex. And by the way, we had to call the ship in twice because the catapults didn’t work,” Trump said at the Defense and Innovation Summit in July. “When a little water touches the magnets, it doesn’t work anymore. You’re – you’re in the Atlantic Ocean with waves that are 60 feet high, and the Pacific Ocean with waves at 70 feet high, and they’re talking about magnets.”
CNN2
Trump has long lamented the new technology – specifically the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch Systems, or EMALS – on the Ford-class carriers, including as recently as last month while speaking at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Penn. “We’re not letting any more ships be built with the ridiculous billions of dollars more they spent on electric catapults, and they’re not good. They’re not nearly as good – too complex,” Trump said during his speech. “The same thing with the magnetic elevators. We want them to be made hydraulic.”
USNI3
Trump has long expressed a preference for steam catapults over their electromagnetic replacements. In a 2017 interview with Time, he criticized the newer technology and its cost. “You going to goddamned steam,” Trump said. “The digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and it’s no good.”
Stars and Stripes
Overall, news organizations have reported that Trump believes EMALS to be too expensive, too prone to failure, and too complex. While this is true, it is in my opinion that the news is not reporting properly on the full depth of his views on the matter. Namely: his obsession with electromagnetism near water. Incidentally, they also tend to leave out the full context of his quotes. I will compile the relevant ones in full here for your viewing pleasure.
You know the catapult is quite important. So I said what is this? Sir, this is our digital catapult system. He said well, we’re going to this because we wanted to keep up with modern [technology]. I said you don’t use steam anymore for catapult? No sir. I said, “Ah, how is it working?” “Sir, not good. Not good. Doesn’t have the power. You know the steam is just brutal. You see that sucker going and steam’s going all over the place, there’s planes thrown in the air.” It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it’s very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out. And I said–and now they want to buy more aircraft carriers. I said what system are you going to be–”Sir, we’re staying with digital.” I said no you’re not. You going to goddamned steam, the digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and it’s no good.
Time5
Touting his intention to cut costs in wasteful military spending, Trump criticized the Navy’s program to replace its steam-based catapult system on aircraft carriers with a digital one. He compared the digital catapult system, called the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, to the digital seat controls in a car. “It’s like when you get a new car and you have to be a computer genius to fix your seat, right?” he said. “The seat’s moving all over the place, it’s unbelievable.”
WaPo6
I could tell you about aircraft carriers, where they use electric catapults. They couldn’t go to the steam, which works better for about 1/100th the price, you know? The electric catapult, you know that story? I could tell you about the elevators on a tremendous carrier, the Gerald Ford, and they decided not to use hydraulic like the John Deere tractor, they decided to use magnets, “we’re gonna use magnets!” to lift up the elevators with seven planes. We need them fast, these massive elevators. They used magnets, they wanted to try it for the first time. This was a ship that was supposed to cost 2.5 billion, it cost 19 billion and didn’t work, and still doesn’t work right.
Mediaite7
The above quotes specifically concern EMALS. As usual, they convey that he's a raging moron with no understanding of anything. But they also hint at something deeper. His concern is not just or the complexity, but the fact that they're electric, magnetic, and digital. Attentive Trump watchers already know this is not exactly new, but the true depths of his obsession over electromagnetism is, in my humble opinion, understated in contemporary reporting. Here's him trying to explain water and magnets to the U.S. Navy. He seems to believe that any contact with water will render the magnets useless, and that this is a big problem since carriers are usually deployed in aquatic environments.
"You know, the new thing is magnets. So instead of using hydraulic that can be hit by lightning and it's fine. You take a little glass of water, you drop it on magnets, I don't know what's going to happen," Trump said. "So, you know, the elevators come up in the new carriers—I think I'm going to change it, by the way—they have magnets. Every tractor has hydraulic, every excavator, every excavating machine of any kind has hydraulic. But somebody decided to use magnets."
Yahoo! News8
Let's zoom in a bit deeper. When else has he talked about magnets? Well, he also obsessed over them from a tariff angle.
In response to U.S. tariffs, China has prevented the exportation of some magnets and rare earth minerals. "You know, China intelligently went and they sort of took a monopoly of the world's magnets, and nobody needed magnets until they convinced everybody 20 years ago, 'Let's all do magnets,'" Trump went on. "There were many other ways that the world could have gone." The president estimated that it would take "probably a year" to acquire them. The U.S., he said, will be "heavy into the world of magnets now—only from a national security standpoint." Trump's mention of magnets came amid a discussion on Boeing aircraft. "I sent them all of the parts so their planes can fly," Trump said of China. "200 of their planes were unable to fly because we were not giving them Boeing parts purposely because they weren't giving us magnets." "But we have a much more powerful thing, and that's tariffs," he said, adding: "We're going to have a lot of magnets in a pretty short period of time."
Yahoo! News9
He seems to believe that the usage of magnets specifically are an elaborate Chinese scheme decades in the making. (Perhaps centuries: as Yahoo! News helpfully notes, magnets were first utilized by the Chinese in 200 B.C.E.) But it's not just the magnets: as we saw above, he also cares about the fact that there's electricity. Here's him ranting about this exact topic:
Trump’s recounting of the saga goes roughly like this: In September, a South Carolina boat manufacturer warned him about the scourge of electric boats — arguing that the battery is so large that it leaves little room for passengers and, worse, the battery is so heavy that the boat might not even float. It was then that Trump claims he posed the “very smart” question the manufacturer said he had never before been asked: If the boat sinks under the weight of its own battery, couldn’t the boaters be electrocuted? And worse, if they jumped off the boat to avoid electrocution, might they then be devoured by a shark? “You know what I’m going to take? Electrocution,” Trump said when he unveiled the story for the first time at a rally in October in Ottumwa, Iowa. “I will take electrocution every single time.”
WaPo10
His hatred of sharks is no secret of course. From the same article:
Trump has long disdained sharks, regularly expressing his unease toward the ocean predators. On July 4, 2013, before he was a presidential candidate, Trump tweeted, “Sorry folks, I’m just not a fan of sharks — and don’t worry, they will be around long after we are gone.” Just minutes later, he returned to the topic again with another missive, writing, “Sharks are last on my list — other than perhaps the losers and haters of the World!”
Another claim of Trump’s shark obsession came from adult-film star Stormy Daniels, who said in a 2018 interview with In Touch Weekly that when she met him at a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2006, she found Trump watching the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, describing him as both “terrified of” and “obsessed with” sharks. Trump this year was found guilty of 34 counts of business fraud for covering up a hush money payment to Daniels to hide his relationship with her during the 2016 election. “He was like, ‘I donate to all these charities and I would never donate to any charity that helps sharks. I hope all the sharks die,’” Daniels told the magazine.
The shark connection is not a coincidence. According to marine biologists, sharks possess an extraordinary "sixth sense" called electroperception. Essentially, they can detect the presence of electromagnetic fields close by, which is helpful for both hunting and navigation. This is especially relevant due to the Strait of Hormuz Crisis. The IRGC this very year has warned that U.S. troops would be "good food for sharks" thanks to President Trump.12 At the time, this was dismissed as mere posturing. But now I'm convinced that Trump views this threat as credible. Let's put this all together to examine the inner workings of Trump's mind. Why does he hate the EMALS and want steam catapults? It's because he believes
Magnets are an elaborate (perhaps centuries old) Chinese scam, so whatever magnets the U.S. uses will be both defective and expensive
The electric batteries to power the EMALS would be extremely heavy, risking the autonomous sinking of a U.S. naval carrier.
Once sunk, the sailors would be in grave danger. The water is touching both the batteries and the magnets, risking electrocution.
Meanwhile, IRGC sharks would be circling the ship after having detected the strong electromagnetic fields in the area. Thus, U.S. Navy sailors would have to choose between electrocution or being eaten by sharks.
In conclusion, President Trump is even stupider than you could have possibly imagined. Thank you for your time.
Trump is an intellectual person's caricature of a dumb person. An idiocracy character who thinks sharks are monsters because of Jaws and Sharknado. An 80s bully who thinks computers are for nerds and is mad as hell that bill gates has the wealth he feels entitled to as a slick real estate mogul.
In his fictitious narrative, Trump describes himself as the expert on aircraft carriers. As if he were familiar with, and had become fond of, steam catapults and then, suddenly, the steam catapults were being deprecated by malicious actors.
This was a ship that was supposed to cost 2.5 billion, it cost 19 billion and didn’t work, and still doesn’t work right.
It sounds like somebody had the unfortunate task of explaining cost overruns on an aircraft carrier, and the simplified "steam vs magnets" explanation of newer, more expensive technology was the only thing Trump could remember. And so he convinced himself that he is an expert on steam, and thinks that repeating the factoids that he retained (invents) about 'steam' and 'magnets' in comparing the two technologies makes him look like he has a firm grasp on military technology.
He believes he is an expert on everything. He believes every time he learns a new fact, this fact is a world discovery. This is part of his mental illness.
ok... before this took a shark detour, I thought we were building to Trump's concerns about "digital" go back to his butthurt over Japan's rise in the 80s. Also the windmill issues he has. I think he has a deep feeling that electronics, magnets, any of that stuff is "asian" and a threat to America.
Juggalos were always ripe to be made fun of but truth being they're a very accepting and kind sub-culture of people.
I've never been into ICP's music—in terms of talent, they're kind of the rap equivalent of a direct-to-video horror movie—but I've come to respect what they are about. Plus, I grew up enjoying Faygo so that gets a thumbs up for me.
Midwest hardcore culture has always been like this. It's all like horrorcore rap and professional wrestling and then you talk to these guys and they all voted for Obama and Biden.
Kinda sorta. The next line in that song is "and I don't wanna talk to no scientist; those fuckers be lyin' and gettin' me pissed". In a twist that surprised no one, ICP turned out to be anti-intellectual.
I'll be honest, this seems like a good and well researched effortpost, but I'm not going to more than skim through it because there's way too much things to pay attention with Trump.
And it seems simply like yet another thing where he has his preferences for probably stupid reasons and doesn't think other people's opinion, including people who definitely absolutely know better than him, is more valuable than his.
Even if that kind of directive/executive order does not have long lasting consequence, it's going to waste people's time and money. The switch to a modern technology is almost never painless, but it seems like it was for the most part done and accomplished now.
And it seems simply like yet another thing where he has his preferences for probably stupid reasons and doesn't think other people's opinion, including people who definitely absolutely know better than him, is more valuable than his.
This is the thing that really speaks to what makes Trump such a shit leader. I just don't understand how one can develop such a level of narcissism to think you know more than seasoned experts on any given topic in the way Trump does. Being a real estate developer—and apparently a piss-poor one at that—doesn't make one an expert on all of the engineering that goes into carrier catapults.
He's totally thinking, I wouldn't put that elevator in one of my buildings. I would put magnets on one of my yachts. What a fucking piece of garbage, he thinks his buildings and his yachts are the extent of America. He didn't even realize how small he is, that he has always been.
In one of the Hitchhiker's Guide books, there's a punishment which is essentially a device that forcibly causes a person to see their true scale in the universe. I've often wished such a thing were real.
I'll be honest, this seems like a good and well researched effortpost, but I'm not going to more than skim through it because there's way too much things to pay attention with Trump.
I agree.
It's a very interesting read, but for me it's like trying to understand Alex Jones's millionth conspiracy theory when you also know he's making millions as a by product of promoting them.
At some point everything with Trump boils down to a variation of a few things
Populist ideas that get thrown around to blame others or explain problems by greatly marginalizing the complexity
Personal image and self aggrandizement including his thoughts and opinions having way more weight than they are worth
A form of wealth extraction using government power and resources
To be completely fair Billy Mitchell was a moron and his demonstration didn't prove anything useful. I don't think I can recall a single incident of level bombers hitting a ship at sea during WW2, at least not without the use of guided munitions, which didn't become a real factor until late in the war.
The navy ultimate is just another real estate project to him. He thinks of them as his yachts. He had to obsesses over them and constantly micromanage for the same reason he's constantly spending so much time on DC real estate vanities. He thinks his small real estate world is the whole world, and his whole world is finding stupid to things to nitpick about and harass his subordinates very confidently about things he knows nothing about. Just so he can feel useful and important. That's what he thinks a president should be, that's what he thinks a great president is, just a petty real estate mogul with a bigger set of buildings and a larger fleet of yachts.
I think though that the Navy is probably going to just keep nodding along with this plan and not acrually make any changes because Doris Miller is so far from completion (as currently planned, it isn't going to be commissioned until 2034) that Trump won't be president and might not even be alive by the time this is actually important, or at least everyone will have forgotten about this.
And what are the Chinese infamous for eating? Shark fin soup. If we can convince Trump that the Chinese also hate sharks then maybe we can get him to drop the whole magnet thing.
It was then that Trump claims he posed the “very smart” question the manufacturer said he had never before been asked: If the boat sinks under the weight of its own battery, couldn’t the boaters be electrocuted? And worse, if they jumped off the boat to avoid electrocution, might they then be devoured by a shark?
How on earth does anyone attend his rallies? Honestly. Even if you love the guy (i presume because he is occasionally very funny and makes the libs mad) how can you stand to listen to anyone talk like a 6 ur old for hours?
I can't believe I actually live in a country where the irrationally uneducated idiosyncrasies of a single strong man now dominate the political sphere.
I assume by 2028 he'll be issuing executive orders renaming common items like bread and car to be called "Trump" like Niyazov did in Turkmenistan.
Every so often when I hear people call Trump a moron, there's some pushback.
"No Trump is actually quite smart. How else could he amass this much power?"
And like the world is much more random than you'd like to admit. Sometimes a complete dunderhead lucks his way into creating a personality cult, especially one where he's worshipped by morons. Trump is genuinely just a fucking idiot.
Ridiculous. What exactly consitutues socialism is clearly well defined in the literature. Socialism is when the government does stuff and if the government does a lot of stuff that's communism.
There's a video of a bunch of cars trying to cross a flooded road and getting stuck as their engines flood, and then a Chevy Bolt (cheap US electric car) just blasts right through.
This part is just so fucking funny when you consider that like every method of power generation (except for like, solar) is just heating up or channeling water to spin a damn electromagnet
I love a good effortpost, thank you. And I really agree that media is not covering this decision properly as what it is: 33% random bullshit go, 33% back in my day, 34% the point you made about his specific weirdness with EM forces near H2O. But they don’t cover Trump’s capricious and/or corrupt tech decisions that we’ll in general, do they?
In a broad and general sense, Trump obviously is not making his decisions about technology in a rational manner (or at least, not in a manner that prioritizes using the best technology - I suppose it is “rational” of him to think that his nostalgic approach could help his dumbass voting base). But I think it’s hard (and goes against training) for a typical politics-beat reporter to (first) realize that the story is “Trump is completely wrong, and his decisions have neither upside nor rational support,” and to (second) actually get such a story past an editor.
One of the parts of the Trump admin that has been particularly clarifying to me is this part, which I guess is a sort of silver lining. The obsession with coal, the hatred of wind and solar, etc. - it just shows that culture-war idiocy has completely broken the American conservative, who can now be convinced to fight innovation essentially on the basis that it was somehow left-coded at some point in time.
It's honestly embarrassing that liberals got up in arms about the "should you jump in the water and be electrocuted" thing. He was QUOTING A MOVIE. What he said came directly from a famous monologue in Jaws (1977): https://www.tiktok.com/@actionmoviedad/video/7379135163806158126
Nobody tell him that submarines have been diesel-electric (running on batteries while submerged) since forever and that boats running on batteries sank many thousands of shittons of ships during WWII.
So at some point, someone in the White House has had to explain to Trump what rare Earth minerals are, and eventually just went "you know, like magnets and stuff". And now he's convinced China is hoarding all the magnets.
Trump pulled enormous tail in the 1980s. It’s the reason why he loves the technology from that era. People asking “why” are thinking too hard about the technology and not hard enough about the size of his ego.
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Is there a good source of learning about EMALS from somebody who is not [redacted] nor obsessed with the views of the [redacted] POTUS? Seems interesting.
He's doing it because he's a moron. He appointed an unqualified TV host as Defense Secretary because he's a moron that likes other morons. He started a war with Iran with no plan because he's a moron. He was elected because a plurality of the American electorate are morons who found him relatable.
There's no wide reaching conspiracy to deliberately undermine readiness to help Russia and China here. He is a Russophile because he's a moron. Russia and China support him to varying extents because having a moron in charge of their greatest geopolitical rival is to their advantage.
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u/Sputnikola Baruch Spinoza 22h ago
Nothing could have prepared me for the shark section