Underwater, submarines are essentially blind. They maneuver slowly and cautiously. Along with the myriad of high-tech instruments and gauges, submariners working to operate their ship safely also rely on one ultra-simple device called an “inclinometer” — essentially an oversized carpenter’s level, mounted prominently in the ship’s control room for all to see.

Like the level in your toolbox, the inclinometer houses a glass tube, filled with liquid and trapping a visible bubble. When the submarine’s bow pitches upward toward the surface or heads downward deeper into the ocean, the bubble moves with it, telling the operators how steeply the ship is angled up or down.

Any inability of the sub’s operators to fully control the ship’s depth or dive angle is termed “losing the bubble.” That’s not a cause for panic; steep “angles and dangles” (more submarine jargon) are commonplace in submarine operations, but they reinforce the critical importance of always knowing where the ship is, what’s ahead, what’s above, and what’s below.

And among submariners, the metaphor — the broader meaning of the term “losing the bubble” in any life situation — is that very uncomfortable feeling of not being in complete control, of being unsure about the path ahead and the obstacles that might be in the way. Sound familiar?

On the subject of Democratic Socialism, the Democrat Party has clearly lost the bubble. To apply my analogy, if big tent Chuck Schumer were a submarine commanding officer (although hard to imagine, even in jest), he’d be saying, “Well, we sure are going down fast, and I don’t know exactly what’s in the way or how deep the water is around here — but, what the hell, it’s a big ocean! Full speed ahead!”

Right now, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), along with the larger Democrat Party to whom they’ve attached themselves, are giddy at the buzz of their recent electoral successes and the thrill of having finally broken out of their multi-year rut. Their newly selected Michigan senatorial nominee Abdul El-Sayed keeps talking about how powerful “the movement” is — but he stops short of providing anything tangible about where that movement is headed, how it plans to get there, and the obstacles in the way — as if movement is an end in itself.

Sensing the growing uneasiness of the electorate at large with a full-on lurch into socialism, El-Sayed now insists that he’s not actually a socialist and is not even a DSA member; but at the same time, he is their champion. If he and the DSA were to actually succeed in achieving the DSA platform objectives, the USA would have ditched our 250-year-old Constitution, have no more borders, no police, no jails, no military defense, and certainly no democracy. Our nation would be a wasteland, available for whoever wants to pick up the pieces. Yes, Abdul El-Sayed has lost the bubble; I’m not sure he even knows that there is a bubble.

And there’s Francesca Hong, the DSA member who until just this week was the odds-on favorite to win the Democrat nomination for Wisconsin governor. Hong comes across as a pleasant, soft-spoken, and very likable candidate. If we were ever looking for a politician who is the polar opposite of Donald J. Trump, she’d fit the bill.

Although so far in her young life, Hong has yet to achieve anything of consequence, she nevertheless conveys a utopian vision of life for Wisconsinites under her leadership — free healthcare, affordable everything, security, peace and justice for all — but with no hints about how to get there. In her plan, for example, eliminating prisons is a “longer term goal” — suggesting that there is an interim term during which crime and criminals will just disappear. Hmm…

Francesca Hong too has lost the bubble. Fortunately, even Wisconsin’s Democrat voters noticed.

On the other side of the political aisle, has President Trump lost the bubble on Iran? Hopefully not, but it looks that way. Trump was clear-eyed going into the war, executing the initial phase (Epic Fury) with near perfection. But since then it’s been a painful, inconclusive ping-pong of threats, promises, sporadic hostilities, dead-end negotiations, all with no end in sight.

The harsh truth remains that the war is still with us. We’ve spent an enormous amount of money, expended mountains of munitions vital to national defense, put thousands of American troops in harm’s way, lost more than two dozen lives — and we still have neither closure nor confidence that we will have it anytime soon.

Our recent fixation on the Strait of Hormuz is, in my view, a distraction. The Strait is an international waterway. What Iran is doing or threatening to do (controlling access, charging tolls) is piracy, plain and simple — it’s not a matter for negotiation and ultimately must be dealt with by the international community. It’s not why we started the war and should not dictate how we end it.

In my view, the path to regaining control of the situation is to keep an unblinking eye on our initial objectives, such that once achieved militarily we can ramp down, maintain constant oversight, keep U.S. forces in place to make sure that Iran stays in the box, and simultaneously engage our global allies and Iran’s neighbors to assist in preventing Iranian return to their bad habits. Moreover, we should drop the fruitless negotiation with a fractured, insincere enemy who has demonstrated again and again that they have no intent to honor whatever agreement is reached.

Trump could signal that with a Truth Social proclamation. Here’s my suggestion:

I am announcing today that our negotiations with Iran have been completed. While we’ve never reached formal agreement from Iran, they’ve persistently answered our repeated generous offers with belligerent actions.

We have given Iran two options. It can continue to be a bankrupt, squalid nation with no wherewithal to rebuild, or it can gradually restore its prosperity by completely ceasing all acts of aggression. So far, Iran’s leaders have chosen the former, and for that reason we will continue to punish their actions and forcefully prevent their resumption of oil production and sales.

Iran’s future is in its own hands: be a good citizen, prosper, and grow, or remain in squalor. indefinitely. We’ll be watching.

Thank you for your attention to this matter! DJT

Not a wholly satisfying resolution, but a decisive step forward. Something along those lines would make it clear that the president has not lost the bubble.