In December 2016, a petition on the White House’s official petition site, “We The People…” called for naming the next “major U.S. Navy ship” the “USS The Deplorables.”
Related: The Navy just commissioned its newest littoral combat ship
The suggestion is a reference to then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s remark at a September campaign event about putting “half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables.”
If the petition gets more than 100,000 signatures in 30 days, the White House will have to give an official statement on the status of the petition. After 10 days, the petition had only 5,070 signatures – a rate that won’t hit the desired goal for a response from the White House.
Maybe the name suggestion is the issue. “The Deplorables” just doesn’t seem to resonate with enough potential petition signers, so we came up with these alternatives, the petitioners – and the U.S. Navy – might want to consider.
1. “USS Rob Ford”
Donald Trump is reminiscent of this oft-misunderstood foreign government executive. The Navy once named a ship after Winston Churchill, so there’s even a precedent for it.
2. “USS Seinfeld”
As Patty and Selma Bouvier once noted, it’s easier to be popular by leeching the popularity of others. So we also suggest changing the name of the next ship to “Seinfeld.”
3. “Trump Ship”
Why not? Trump names most of his business ventures after himself. Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, Trump Magazine, Trump University, Trump Mortgage… you get it.
4. “USS Carlos Danger”
The Navy is overhauling a cargo ship, the Cragside, for a floating special operations base. Why not name it the Carlos Danger, for those times when your real identity needs to be a secret.
He’s definitely deplorable. Also, he should post this screengrab on a wall as a reminder. (YouTube/Sundance Selects)
5. Ask Mountain Dew Drinkers
When you crowdsource the names of seagoing vessels to the general public, they come back with names like “Boaty McBoatface.” But this is a name for a ship in the U.S. Navy. There’s no room for cute.
So, limit the pool of respondents to people who drink Mountain Dew, by putting a code under the bottle that allows them to make a suggestion.
The potential responses are guaranteed to not be cute.
6. “USS Bloodsport”
One of President-Elect Trump’s favorite movies is the Jean-Claude Van Damme martial arts classic “Bloodsport.” We think he would love to name a ship after this, and probably thinks it would strike fear into the hearts of the enemy. Frankly, we couldn’t agree more.
7. “USS Steven Seagal”
It’s not a secret that Trump’s win could bring the United States closer to Russia. Why not bestow the honor of naming a ship after one of Russia’s favorite stars and newly-christened citizen, Steven Seagal.
8. “USNS Hillary Clinton”
This might anger Trump supporters at first — they were, after all, the target of the “deplorables” comment in the first place. But remember that it’s important to be a gracious winner.
