If this is Trump’s way of announcing that he’s planning to turn Space Force into “Star Trek” then he’s going to win 45 states next year.

Outside shot at all 50.

At a minimum it’s an ingenious way to recruit. Every nerd in the country is staring at this tweet this afternoon thinking, “It’s happening.”

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1220821545746141187

Dude, for real:

Dude. pic.twitter.com/611J8Y9xkB

— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) January 24, 2020

I’m going to give you three theories for how this happened.

1. Trump got pranked. Some dastardly Never Trumper in the Pentagon bureaucracy thought it’d be funny to rip off the Starfleet Command logo and see if he’d approve it, expecting that he might be the one person in America among his generation who wouldn’t recognize it instantly.

2. Trump came up with it. The president didn’t get pranked, he ripped it off “Star Trek” himself. The man watches 22 hours of TV a day and all of his cultural reference points seem to date to no later than 1983. You think he doesn’t know the Starfleet Command logo when he sees it? C’mon.

He may even be under the impression that Space Force actually is some sort of real-life Pentagon attempt at “Star Trek.” God help whoever ends up having to explain to him that Vulcans aren’t real. Mick Mulvaney’s going to earn his paycheck this week.

3. It’s not a rip-off of “Star Trek,” it’s a rip-off of a rip-off. I say again: Dude.

For those excitedly tweeting that Trump stole the Star Trek logo!!!!, the patch on the left was the existing Air Force Command logo.

The same one I wore as a Lieutenant in 2005. pic.twitter.com/mYb60YioBP

— John Noonan (@noonanjo) January 24, 2020

Clearly the Space Force logo drew inspiration from the Air Force logo but you’ll never convince me that Starfleet Command didn’t influence it too. The circular format, the text layout, the pinpoint stars in the background, and of course that distinctive orbital swoosh around the main cursor/spaceship. It’s all there, buddy. There’s a Trekkie in the Pentagon’s design department. No other plausible explanation.

Here’s Trump enemy Justin Amash reacting to the news in GIF form. Exit question: Didn’t the “T” in “James T. Kirk” stand for “Trump”?

https://t.co/Q3pvdbvEw2 pic.twitter.com/HrWwoY2EtH

— Justin Amash (@justinamash) January 24, 2020