By Douglas V. Gibbs
During the Obama and Biden presidencies, the Democrats renamed over 650 specific geographic natural physical features, human features, public places, and military locations. Most changes targeted alleged ethnic, racial, or sexist slurs, while others eliminated references to Confederate figures, or historical figures that somehow offended somebody. Mountains, peaks, lakes, streams, canyons, islands, schools, streets and valleys all became targets. The cultural renaming extended even beyond geography, with women becoming “birthing persons,” among other games with language.
Now, Democrats rage over Trump’s decision to rename Lake Ontario to “Lake America,” despite the fact that the lake occupies nearly half of American territory. That said, Canada can keep calling it Lake Ontario, for all I care.
Trump’s opponents conveniently forget their own renaming frenzy. When Barack Obama changed the name of Mount McKinley to Mount Denali, they cheered – proclaiming it to be a restoration of its “Native American” name. Never mind that they were simultaneously eliminating “Native American” names elsewhere as “cultural appropriation.”
The hypocrisy is staggering, and it doesn’t just reside in changing the names of things.
They complained when Trump appointed Todd Blanche to attorney general because the two have “too close of a relationship.” He was Trump’s personal lawyer, they screamed. Trump’s giving positions to his friends and family, they cried. They said nothing when Obama appointed his best friend Eric Holder to AG. They still say nothing about the fact that President John F. Kennedy appointed his brother, Robert Kennedy, to AG.
They argue that Trump is waging an illegal war in Iran. Where were their arguments when Obama waged an undeclared war on the Afghan-Pakistan border, took out Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, and ordered 500 assassination takeouts with drones? A couple of those assassinations, by the way, were Americans – and not all of the targets were terrorists.
Bill Clinton didn’t receive arguments from the media and Democrats when he hit the Serbians in the name of saving Bosnia and Kosovo from “genocide.”
They complain about his White House Ballroom despite the fact that all Presidents have made changes and renovations to the White House in one way or another. They complain about the events he’s held, claiming he’s wasting taxpayer money when, like with the Ballroom, those events were paid for with private money. How many events and restorations to the White House did Democratic Presidents have – which, by the way, were each paid with taxpayer dollars.
The contradictions are not hard to recognize, and the reason is simple. It’s never been about the action. It’s only about who performs it. If Trump is authoritarian for renaming a lake, what does that make Obama and Biden who renamed over 650 places? While I appreciate tradition, the selective outrage reveals a whole lot of truth. They will oppose anything Trump does, even when it mirrors their own actions.
In the end, the only question we should be asking is if President Trump has the constitutional authority to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America. The answer is, he’s head of the executive branch, so he can rename plenty of things inside the federal government’s own paperwork and signage. What he can’t do is force Canada to adopt the new name, rewrite international agreements, or demand the rest of the world’s mapmakers comply. He can call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America and change the name of Lake Ontario on government paperwork that comes out of the executive branch to Lake America all he wants – but whether or not everyone else wants to follow his lead… well, that is totally up to them.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
