By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com
August 14, 2026
Conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln are so bad that at least one crew member jumped overboard.
Family members in contact with the sailors and other personnel aboard the ship report that there have been several other attempts by those aboard to jump into the sea.
That’s because the Lincoln has been deployed for far longer than intended. The ship has been supporting President Donald Trump’s ill-considered and poorly planned war with Iran.
Because the ship has been at sea for so long, there have been shortages of food and toiletries, among other necessities.
The mental and physical health of the crew—more than 5,000 Americans who just wanted to serve their country—has taken a pounding because the Department of Defense didn’t take the time to put together a plan for a war that would last more than a few days.
In other words, no one in the Trump administration thought about what they would do if the fighting with Iran didn’t go exactly the way they hoped it would.
Meanwhile, closer to home, we’re seeing outbreaks of measles and other diseases that once were safely contained.
That’s because the head of Health and Human Services, in defiance of almost every medical doctor in the world, has argued that vaccines not only aren’t necessary, but they often aren’t even a good idea.
The result of this change of direction is that Americans are suffering and dying again from ailments that not long ago were considered almost extinct.
What do the horrible conditions on the Lincoln and the resurgence of once-controlled deadly diseases have in common?
Both are a product of the war on expertise, knowledge and truth waged by a certain reactionary, populist segment of the American public—a war that, sadly, has been condoned and even embraced by most of the Republican Party.
Just why the GOP decided to adopt ignorance and incompetence as its brand during this period of our history is one of those mysteries historians of the future will spend decades attempting to solve.
But this assertion that ignorance is superior to understanding and ineptitude is better than skill explains why we’re in the mess we’re in.
Before he took command of a Defense Department that is comprised of more than 3.4 million people, Pete Hegseth was a TV talking head who never had run anything larger than his own mouth.
Since assuming control of what once was the most powerful fighting force in human history, Hegseth has spent most of his time attempting to stage TV-friendly stunts to please his boss and pursuing purges of anyone who doesn’t look or think like him. He also has allowed our arsenal of weapons necessary for us to defend ourselves to be dangerously depleted.
Part of the reason we’re stuck in what now promises to be an endless war with Iran—and a ship full of dedicated patriots is stranded at sea—is that he and his boss, who also prefers fantasy to reality, fired or chased away almost all of the command officers experienced in staffing and fighting wars.
It’s as if we decided that we’d relied on battle-tested warriors for too long and it was time to give barroom blowhards their chance to run things.
The same sort of thinking prevails now regarding public health.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. received his undergraduate degree in American literature and history from Harvard. He later picked up his law degree from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree in environmental law from Pace University.
Those are worthy educational achievements but are hardly preparation for crafting health policy for a complex nation of more than 340 million human beings.
We’re now seeing resurgences of diseases until recently thought to be as dead as the dinosaurs because we have a public health chief who thinks applause lines in demagogic speeches should carry more weight than rigorous scientific research.
This is to be expected.
We elected to the most powerful office on earth a supposedly successful businessman who has declared bankruptcy at least six times and has spent his entire career presenting failure as victory and blithering inadequacy as awesome mastery.
The plight of the USS Abraham Lincoln is a tragic insult to the dedication of men and women who wear this nation’s uniform.
And it’s also, sadly, miserably, a symbol of where we are as a nation now.
John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. The views expressed are those of the author only and should not be attributed to Franklin College. Also, the views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.
