MARCH 5, 2026 – I really feel as if I’m a passenger on one of those gargantuan cruise ships with 23 decks, 25 dining rooms, 18 swimming pools, and enough poker chips to sink the ship if they all slid off the poker tables at the same time. (Eh, eh. That’s a joke.) The cruise brochure has turned out to be the greatest piece of false advertising in the history of consumer capitalism.
In the first place, the Ports of Call have been altered. We thought we were bound for the Port of Cheap Eggs and Le Porte de Immigrantes Criminales, but instead, we witnessed the killing of American citizens on the streets of Minneapolis and made an unwelcome call to Greenland, of all places, in the dead of winter, then Caracas, where we weren’t even allowed to disembark or refuel—wrong grade of petrol, as it turned out. We now seem bound for Havana—sooner or later—though no one knows for sure.
Meanwhile, willy nilly, we steamed all the way over to the Middle East to see our mighty missiles rain down on Persia until (a) Trump decides to invade California, (b) we run out of money or munitions—or both, or (c) Putin takes full advantage of the distraction and annexes the whole of Ukraine. We have yet to be informed—reliably, anyway, in the case of an Administration that lives by reckless lies—exactly why and why now, we’re at war.
As it turns out, we’re not on a cruise ship anymore. We haven’t been since January 20 of last year. We’re hostages aboard a pirate ship, and though the vessel flies the American ensign, pirates control the helm. Worse still, the pirates aren’t only mean and avaricious. They’re incompetent, incapable of playing hopscotch more than one square ahead of their right foot.
What will it take before the outrage over countless assaults on the rule of law, civil norms, moral and intellectual integrity, human decency and dignity, reason and rationality—when will the outrage stir us to mutiny? What will it take for us to seize control of the helm, throw the brigands overboard and reclaim control of the ship?
But when reason is restored and we chart a course back to our foundational principles, who will have us? Who will trust us? Or from a darker angle, what other authoritarian regimes will emulate us, cite our words, adopt our rogue profile and claim in our image that might makes right?
The thing of it is, none of the pirates is an intruder, an invader, an alien. None boarded the ship clandestinely; none dressed in black and on a moonless night, with knife blades between their jaws, climbed up and over the side, surprised the crew and took over the ship. Each was a walk-on in broad daylight, invited by the voters. Each was an American citizen and by birthright, no less, except, of course, that man Musk, who like a knight of the night, was let into the pirate’s camp early on . . . with his chain saw . . . then let out again to play with his billions, but leaving no accounting behind. Yes, the pirates are all-American; products of the very culture that produced the cruise ship that the pirates commandeered and converted to a pirate ship; their pirate ship.
Yet, as I watch the reflection of the skull-and-crossbones flag ripple in the waters below, I see the ship in both its forms—at once a cruise ship and a pirate ship. Thus, we face a dual challenge: first we must rid the ship of the pirates who now control it, but once they’re gone, stripped of their power and held to account, we’ll need to convince ourselves, our allies, our adversaries, that a crew of pirates will never again gain purchase of our ship of state. But first things first: Down with the Jolly Roger!
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© 2026 by Eric Nilsson
