Naming It First, Owning It Next

He wanted to call it the Gulf of Trump. When he floated the idea, advisers told him it wouldn't look good, and he let it go — mostly. Months later he was still musing that it wasn't too late to do it properly. ^[1]

I wanted to do it. I wanted to. My people worked so hard. ‘Sir, I don’t think it’ll look too good.’ I’m telling you it’s a good thing. ‘And it’ll be hotter than ever,’ I said. No, but I decided not to do that. — Donald Trump

The Gulf of America, in other words, was the fallback. The vanity came first, stated out loud; the patriotic-sounding name was the calibrated version of it. That is worth holding onto, because it explains almost everything that has followed — and it is the thing the administration has worked hardest to bury. Two executive orders now give the impulse its legal shape. "Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness" governs the geographic renaming — the Gulf of Mexico, Denali back to McKinley. ^[2] "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History" governs what the National Park Service may display. ^[3] Both share a single word: restoring. The framing is that these names and stories were stolen, and the president is giving them back. It turns the accusation on its head — a president renaming the country after himself becomes a president recovering the country's stolen heritage. From there the gesture fans out in two directions at once. One direction is the institution as personal property. His signature is going on paper currency, starting with the $100 bill in June; his portrait is on commemorative gold coins and a $1 circulating coin, and the Treasury has prepared mock-ups of a $250 bill with his face. ^[4] The Patriot Passport puts his image and signature on the identity document every citizen carries. ^[5] There is TrumpRx.gov, a Trump Gold Card visa, Trump-class Navy ships. ^[6] And the flow runs the other way too: the presidential seal turned up as golf markers at his private commercial properties, with Trump International listed as the purchaser. ^[7] The other direction is the territory as national property under his administration. The Gulf of America was followed within months by an auction of 81 million acres of oil and gas drilling rights in the renamed gulf. ^[8] Lake Ontario became Lake America on camera, tied explicitly to tariffs on Canada. ^[9]

The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to do much business with Ontario any longer. — Donald Trump

Bears Ears National Monument was cut by 91 percent, and mining claims were filed immediately after the boundary changed. ^[10] This month he proposed renaming New Mexico to New America, with the White House amplifying a map that crosses out "Mexico." ^[9] The naming keeps arriving just ahead of the taking. The gulf was renamed, then leased. The lake was renamed, then tariffed. The monument was shrunk, then mined. Naming is the vanguard; extraction follows. It is not only geography. Military operations got rebranded — extrajudicial killings became "Operation Southern Spear," deportations became "Operation Dirtbag." ^[11] The National Park Service has removed at least 51 exhibits across 37 sites, from climate signage at Acadia to slavery exhibits at the President's House in Philadelphia, and swapped free admission on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday for free admission on Trump's. ^[3][12] The courts have stopped some of it. The D.C. Circuit vacated the renaming of the Kennedy Center, and a Bureau of Engraving director was reassigned after flagging that the $250 bill lacked legal authority. ^[13][4] But the building still sits under tarps and scaffolding months after the lettering came down. ^[13] The name is struck; the occupation remains. And then there is the Moon. On the same day he renamed Lake Ontario, he claimed it.

the moon is ours — Donald Trump

That one is bluster — no lease sale follows a claim on the Moon. It is a useful reminder that part of this is whim, the same impulse that wanted "Gulf of Trump" and settled for "Gulf of America." But the rest is too broad and too consistent to dismiss the same way. Six tracks at once — geography, currency, federal spaces, history, military operations, territorial claims — and the naming keeps arriving just before the material claim. The vanity is real, and it is the origin. But two executive orders have given it a legal architecture and a single word to hide behind: restoration.