Lake America? Spare Us

By Jeffrey Blehar

Thursday, August 27, 2026

 

*sigh*

 

Do I really have to do this? Must I talk about yet another pointless, stupid publicity stunt by America’s flailing president? I suppose so, if only briefly, and only to note how unsuccessful the attempted distraction is. Lake Ontario – you might have heard of it, it’s one of the lamer Great Lakes, but Niagara Falls is nice for budget honeymoons, and western N.Y. needs something going for it other than Indian casinos — has today been peremptorily renamed “Lake America” by Donald Trump via executive order.

 

This rhetorical escalation from Trump is merely another step in the trade war he is seeking to launch against Canada during the run-up to the midterms. I’ve run through the stupidity of this all before — including my analysis of the shockingly simplistic motivations behind Trump’s animus toward Canada — so I don’t want to waste either my time or yours rehashing all of it. (Canada is a natural target of opportunity for Trump, who has forever held their military and cultural weakness in contempt and now uses them as a punching bag of convenience.)

 

But really, what does any of this mean? Nobody is going to start calling Lake Ontario “Lake America,” just like nobody — even in Alabama or Florida — refers to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” (Except laughingly, in that raised-eyebrow “freedom fries” way.) This obviously isn’t the sort of thing that can be changed via executive order, and even if Donald Trump threatens to imprison every mapmaker in the U.S. government, it won’t last for more than two years. (Ask any Chicagoan — even the transplants! — what they call that giant tower that dominates our skyline. Sears may not really exist anymore, but its brand equity lives on in the name.)

 

So what are we left with? Nothing, just a pointless foot-stamping gesture from a president incompetently locked into several simultaneous tire fires of his own making. The economy is hurting. Voters are angry about the rising price of gas and groceries and panicking about AI and data centers. And here Trump is, amusing himself, because he lacks the ability or inclination to do anything else. Trump will fight to rename the Great Lakes, or demolish the Kennedy Center — anything to keep the media from talking about the economy or the war in Iran. Because ultimately Trump thinks of the voters basically as infants who haven’t yet developed object permanence: “If the media is busy talking about something else, then these problems no longer exist!”

 

But they do. And with every time-wasting gesture like this, another news cycle is lost before the November judgment comes nigh. But at least Trump had a nice signing ceremony and all. Hope it helps in Michigan and Wisconsin in a few months.

 

And to think, he might even have been cheered for it if he’d chosen to rename Lake Erie. Nobody likes Lake Erie.