President Trump signed an executive order on August 27 renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America. Combined with his January 2025 order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, that's two major renamings — and the left has been loudly outraged about both.
The outrage might carry more weight if they hadn't spent the last decade renaming everything in sight.
Start with the easy ones.
In 2015, President Obama signed an order renaming Mount McKinley — the tallest peak in North America, named after U.S. president Wiliam McKinley— to Denali. The Republican-controlled Congress had blocked the change for years. Obama bypassed Congress and had the Interior Department do it administratively. Nobody on the left called it an abuse of federal authority over geographic naming. They called it long overdue.
In 2023, the Biden administration spent more than $60 million renaming nine U.S. military installations. Fort Bragg became Fort Liberty. Fort Hood became Fort Cavazos. Nine bases, nine new names, $60 million in taxpayer money. When anyone objected, they were told the old names were offensive and the change was non-negotiable.
Inside the Capitol, Nancy Pelosi's House rewrote its own rules to strip gendered language from congressional documents. "Husband and wife" became "spouse." "Mother and father" became "parent." Words that humans had used to describe family relationships for all of recorded history, quietly retired from official use. The stated reason was inclusion.
Outside Congress, progressive institutions replaced "mother" with "birthing person" and "nursing mother" with "chest feeder" — language overhauls pushed into official health guidance, no vote required, to accommodate a specific ideological constituency.
These same people are now deeply concerned about the integrity of geographic naming conventions.
The Rio Grande offers some useful context. Americans have called it the Rio Grande since the 16th century. Mexico has always called it the Rio Bravo.
Two countries, one river, two names — and neither side has ever needed the other's permission. Geographic names have always been political. The outrage over Trump's orders isn't rooted in principle. It's rooted in who's doing the naming.
When the left renames things, it's a moral correction. When Trump renames things, it's an abuse of power. The same federal authority that turned Mount McKinley into Denali and spent $60 million on military base signs is now being called illegitimate because it's pointed in the opposite direction.
Fort Bragg is Fort Bragg again. Denali is McKinley again. The Gulf of Mexico is the Gulf of America. Lake Ontario is Lake America.
The people who spent years insisting that words matter and names carry meaning are now arguing that this particular president has no business changing them.
They're going to need to pick one.
Conservative analyst Victor Davis Hanson has some more thoughts and examples on this that you might enjoy!
