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What is Donald Trump up to now?
Over Labor Day weekend, he began posting a series of threats to unilaterally rename a US state to spite another country in a trade war that he started for reasons that only he knows.
New Mexico is the country’s fifth-largest state. Trump is suggesting renaming it “New America.”
It doesn’t make sense on any level. But could he do it? What’s this really about?
Does Donald Trump plan to rename New Mexico?
America’s mad king is at it again.
On Sunday, September 6, Donald Trump took to Truth Social, his private social media site, to share a bizarre graphic.
In the graphic — AI slop, like most of his posts — “New Mexico” has been replaced with “New America.”
New Mexico is the 47th State of the Union, admitted in 1912 (on January 6th, a day that felt considerably less ominous back then). It was a territory long before that.
The idea of renaming a state due to the capricious whims of a dementia-riddled tyrant would be a farcical joke for a political sitcom if we lived in a better timeline. Alas, we do not.
Trump reportedly posted menacing graphics suggesting this absurd renaming eight times within a measure of hours.
We have to emphasize that, before New Mexico was a state, it was New Mexico Territory.
For centuries before that, it was Santa Fe de Nuevo México — so named for the Spanish, in a name inspired by the Mexica people who were victims of Spanish colonization, enslavement, and genocide in central America and southern North America.
The idea of calling part of the continental US “New America” is patently absurd on its face. Even if we were not discussing some lunatic despot’s desire to rename a state due to an absurd trade dispute that exists only because of his ego,
Is that even something that he can do? Not really. But, as we have seen repeatedly, he can sort of do whatever he wants if other members of the government are too feckless to stop him.
Could he even do that? What’s really going on?
Just over a week before Donald Trump decided to start antagonizing (yet another) US state for now reason, he “renamed” Lake Ontario.
Obviously, Lake Ontario is still Lake Ontario. In fact, it bore the name Ontario long before Canada existed.
The Great Lake had the name before the Canadian province did. It stems from an Iriquoian name for the “Lake of Shining Waters.” (During French colonialism, there were attempts to give the lake other names … but, to date, no mad king has managed to make it stick.)
And, of course, many months ago, Trump announced that he was “renaming” the Gulf of Mexico into the Gulf of America.
There are worse timelines, as hard as it is to believe. But our worldstate is so absurdly stupid that, sometimes, people struggle to imagine things being even worse than they are right now.
Trump has the authority to direct the federal government to change which names are displayed on maps. This changes nothing in reality. Not for New Mexico, not for Lake Ontario, and not for the Gulf of Mexico.
What is this all about?
Well, for one thing, Trump cannot simply be belligerent at US trading partners, longtime allies, or historical adversaries like Iran. The bullying, lies, and bluster that allowed him to navigate the business world with the appearance of success do not work with international diplomacy.
He can, however, pretend that renaming bodies of water — or even states — is some sort of victory.
More than that, however, Trump is desperate to leave some sort of legacy. Not like a traditional president, who wants to make the world better for future generations. It is more as though Trump wants to leave behind a scar — changes so deep and wounds so painful that the world cannot simply erase him from memory.
That’s as much of an explanation for the desecration of the White House to why he’s turning so much of DC ugly and gaudy and building his big stupid arch. When he is defeated, it will be up to the next administration to clean up his mess and erase all of the harm that he has done (yes, including architecturally).
