What Should We Call Trump’s Space Folly?
By 
Back when Ronald Reagan told us that he had a way to totally protect the United States from a nuclear attack, those of us who were skeptical managed to substitute “Star Wars” in the discourse for the official name, SDI.
Raise you hand if you know what SDI means. I thought so. It was the Strategic Defense Initiative, a nicely bureaucratic name. Star Wars easily supplanted it, slightly mocking, negating Reagan’s seriousness.
Now Donald Trump wants to rebrand that effort, so, I suggested on Bluesky, let’s find an equivalent name for what he, in his obsession with gold, calls Golden Dome. The Dome part comes from the Israeli Iron Dome missile shield, which protects Israel against different sorts of missiles, over a much smaller area than the United States. But even under those more easily met conditions, missiles still slip through.
I suggested two to get things started:
- Golden Combover
- Musk’s Melon
There were a number of suggestions along an obvious theme:
- Golden Missile Showers
- Golden Showers
- Golden Shower Cap
- Golden Shower Dome
The rest, in alphabetical order:
- 12K Plated SAM Sites
- Beautiful pebbles just the most beautiful
- Bronzer Dome
- Chrome Dome
- Condome
- Exorbitant Pebbles
- Expelliarmus
- Fools Gold
- Glass Ceiling
- Golden Arches
- Golden Dope
- Golden Goat Rodeo
- Golden Mushroom
- Golden Teapot Dome
- Golden Throne
- Marc Andreessen’s spare umbrella
- Musk Missile Kickback
- Nuclear Hairpiece
- Orange Dome
- Plunder Dome
- Space Balls
- Space Wall (about as dumb and useless as the border one)
- The concept of a plan dome
- The Fall of Dome
- The MAGA “No!” Line
- The ping ping pang pong pscheeew dome, like nobody’s ever seen before.
- The Trumpian Shield
I like Plunder Dome, and it received some good reactions. What do you like? Got a better one?
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