USMC should drop the F-35 and V-22 — and perhaps the F-18 while it’s at it

Interesting. His opinion is worthy of debate and shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. Every system should pass the cost/benefit ratio test. I think that the Marines should have their own close air support pilots and let Naval Aviators focus on their own missions. However, is the Super Hornet the best choice for close air support? How about A10's. The Air Force is always trying to unload theirs and might give the Marines a real good deal. I imagine that A10's could be carrier based with some modifications.

When has Marine Corps' roots been about Naval Raids. It is about power projection, and strategic mobility. Inchon is probably the best classical use of the Marine Corps. The reality of maintaining Marine Expeditionary Units afloat, Maintaining Support structure, and force retention has been strained ever since the USMC reduction in force of the Clinton Administration.

As to emasculating Marine Air, what air element would then provide close air support for the envisioned "Marine raiding parties" when the CinC decides to insert one to safeguard U.S. interests somewhere in the world? Marine Air exists because nobody else would/could do that job when aviation was new. IMHO, it is still the best support (lacking big-gun offshore support ships) that the Marine Corps could have when it goes somewhere.
With regard to busting the Marine Corps down to a 100,000-man/woman raiding force, I don't see that happening. While the 19th century Marine Corps was small and underfunded and was mostly in detachments on Navy ships, it did do mostly raiding by small landing parties (especially in the Civil War), only forming expeditionary battalions a few times (1830's Indian Wars, Mexican War, Civil War Manassas campaign, Spanish American War). However, during that time Marine thinkers were coming up with ways and means to justify the Corps' existence in the face of several strong attempts to abolish it. When the Corps got two brigades into France during WWI (where they served with the Army), the resulting publicity reminded the American public of just what a good deal they had in their Marine Corps. The Marine Corps continued to expand on that, inventing amphibious doctrine and tactics that were used in WWII by everybody, and in Korea when Army, Navy and Air Force seniors thought it was obsolete. So the Marine Corps has become a land army in the minds of many - but it has never ceased to regard itself as anything but the country's "force in readiness" - ready to go NOW when the other services can't. Nevertheless, that doesn't stop some in the other services from planning the Marine Corps' demise. Professional jealousy? Your call on that. But it reminds me of what Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen Alexander Vandegrift said in his 1946 "Bended Knee" speech to Congress (during a serious attempt to dismantle the Corps): "If the Marine as a fighting man has not made a case for himself....he must go. But I think you will agree with me that he has earned the right to depart with dignity and honor, not by subjugation to the status of uselessness and servility planned for him..."