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Notes -
Trump renaming stuff is good, actually.
My initial reaction to Trump renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and reverting Denali to Mount McKinley was "this is dumb and childish".
I've changed my mind.
If you're a white man under 50, then you've experienced things being renamed as something that is done to your people, for the benefit of others.
Statues of Jefferson and Washington are taken down and statues of civil rights leaders go up. Columbus Day is referred to as "Indigenous People's Day". Robert E. Lee, once the namesake of so many things, is gradually being erased from the map. Since the 1960's, nearly every sizeable town has acquired an MLK Boulevard (usually ridden with crime). And King County, Washington recently did a "name change" in which it discarded its former namesake, former Vice President William R. King, to honor (who else) Martin Luther King.
Countries in the third world have employed this power play as well. Bombay becomes Mumbai, Madras becomes Chennai. Cape Verde becomes Cabo Verde, the Ivory Coast becomes Cote d'Ivoire, and Turkey becomes Türkiye. How long until China insists that foreigners uses its rightful name: 中国.
The indigenous names are worse. Barrow, Alaska is now Utqiagvik. Port Elizabeth, South Africa, has become Gqeberha. Apparently, the citizens of these places don't even use the new and unpronouncable names – which seem to exist only as a way to flex on white people.
Since the 1960s, name changes are one of those things that the left just took complete control over while no one was paying attention. But why should should the left get the exclusive right to rename things?
Trump is now upsetting this forgone conclusion. You rename stuff, we'll rename stuff too. And if you want control over names, you're going to have to give up something else in return. I think it's a good move.
"Gulf of America" is some freedom fries-tier petulant nationalism and everyone who supports it deserves to be mocked relentlessly for their lack of dignity.
Speak for yourself.
Renaming thing can be good or it can be bad, because who and what we choose to honor says something about ourselves. Nor are we bound for eternity by the preferences of those who came before us. We don't expect Latvians to keep up Soviet monuments or Germans to preserve the aesthetic decisions of the Third Reich.
Renaming things that bear the names of Confederates is good, because it is a repudiation of tyranny and white supremacy. The best you can say about these men were that they were good generals (usually not even that), and we're not lacking for pillars of martial excellence that weren't traitors. Renaming things named after, say, Jefferson is bad, because while Jefferson had many less-than-admirable qualities, they're not why we honor him. I'm pretty mixed on Columbus Day, because while Columbus was pretty terrible even by the standards of the time, it's meant to be a celebration of Italian American heritage, not exploitation and genocide (though, as above, I think we could probably dredge up a less notorious alternative who was also actually American).
The Right is, of course, free to rename things, but of late the people and things they seem to want to honor have a tendency to vindicate their critics.
Also, Denali is a vastly superior name name to Mt. McKinley.
Has Trump ever done anything you didn't consider a good move?
Stonewall Jackson was a good man. Robert E Lee was a conflicted man — he wouldn’t have seen himself as a traitor but as a localist. And he conducted himself exemplary post bellum.
That doesn’t mean the CSA was good.
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