written 6 September, 2026
published 13 September, 2026
On June 18th, 2023, the composite submarine Titan, owned and built by OceanGate, was diving to visit the Titanic, with 5 people on board. Three quarters of the way to the bottom, it imploded, killing everyone in milliseconds, the logical consequence of an unrestrained ego in denial of reality.
The Titan was a new design for a deep diving submersible, with a carbon fiber body and titanium ends caps, intended to be cheaper to fabricate and lighter to ship, with the specific goal of taking paying passengers to view the Titanic.
Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate and the designer of Titan, was born into ancestral wealth. A creative engineer, he was an arrogant narcissist, unwilling to listen to dissent, firing those who questioned his design. By operating only in international waters, Rush avoided requirements for third-party evaluations or testing of the Titan design. Despite multiple warnings of risk of failure at depth, he pushed forward. To his credit, he lived by his decisions, and died in the implosion, along with a guide and three paying passengers. A subsequent Coast Guard review determined Rush exhibited criminal negligence.
Our president was also born to wealth, is also an arrogant narcissist, and also refuses to listen to dissent or challenges to his opinions. He is on record stating he feels uncomfortable around people smarter than himself. Since becoming the president, he has demonstrated his incompetence over and over. The war on Iran and our economy is a case in point.
In 2015, after years of work under the Obama administration, the nations of the world had forged an agreement to effectively limit Iran's nuclear ambitions. In exchange for lifting economic sanctions, Iran's enriched uranium was removed, and their nuclear facilities were under constant international inspections.
But in 2018, the president declared it a "terrible deal". Without giving any reasons, or notice to the other participants, he unilaterally canceled the agreement and reimposed sanctions. By this action, he showed America was untrustworthy, the first of many hits to a reputation that had been decades in the making. Iran was furious, decided it needed to take care of itself, and began an aggressive nuclear buildup, the fate the world had tried to avoid.
At the same time, the president began his tariff war, promising other countries would pay the price, yet everybody else knew Americans would actually pay. This began the inflationary rise of domestic prices and the deterioration of long-term trade relations with our primary trading partners.
In his second term, the president purged the government of rational people who actually knew what they were doing, installing layers of incompetent, but loyal, lackeys. This included gutting established leadership in the branches of the military. He also redoubled his tariff war, now including the entire globe. However, world leaders had realized America was no longer a trustworthy partner, and began pushing back with matching tariffs and different trading relationships.
As our economy began to stall, the president, seeking a distraction, decided to address the growing Iranian nuclear threat, completely ignoring that he created the problem. He started the war with little planning and few allies, expecting a quick victory. Despite the best the U.S. military could throw at it, Iran endured, and then closed the strait of Hormuz, destabilizing the entire global energy market, an outcome everyone knew was possible, except for the president's team.
We are now over 6 months into his "excursion", with no end in sight. Traffic through the strait is one tenth prewar levels, despite what the president says on the nightly news. The whole world knows that he lies to suit what he wants to have happen, with total disregard for reality.
The president recently started another round of tariff war with Canada, which responded by cutting off shipment of the heavy crude that we need to refine into diesel, driving prices even higher. Diesel, which runs most of our economy, is now selling for $7.99/gal. in Ukiah. But the president prefers to talk about his ballroom.
The man is incompetent and increasingly delusional. Our economic structure is fraying. The costs of the climate crisis continue to build every month, now undeniably real. The stock market plateaued a month ago. Investors are becoming nervous. The midterms are eight weeks away. Even Republican politicians are beginning to avoid him. Like the OceanGate Titan, the system is about to implode.
The only question is: how many will the president take down with him?
