[xp84]

I find the reaction to this to be interesting, because it's obviously arbitrary, and there are thousands of geographical features whose names vary widely between countries, and not only for the obvious language reasons. So, each country clearly has the right to call international water bodies whatever they want. Personally, I don't care what it's called, but the new name is fine.

But because Trump did it, some Americans find this inherently problematic, in a way I doubt anyone would have if that had happened to be the name given 300 years ago. And I doubt any Mexican ever felt the old name was inappropriate.

If anyone has an argument that I'm missing something in this assessment, I'm happy to listen.

[tmpz22]

The rational take is to understand it within the context of recent expansionist rhetoric which includes the annexation of Canada, strong-arm purchase of Greenland, and conquest of Gaza and Panama.

You don't have to go that far back in a history book to understand the dangers of expansionist rhetoric in a globalist world and how it is directly against American interests to threaten war with our neighbors and allies.

Threatening war with neighbors and allies is not a Christian thing to do.

[kylehotchkiss]

I think there's a habit amongst people who didn't vote for trump to catastrophize his every move, which helps him by distracting people from maybe the more consequential decisions he makes. Interestingly he didn't name it the Gulf of USA, the Gulf of the United States, the Gulf of Florida or The Gulf of Freedom and Bald Eagles, but after the continent itself, which Mexico is in fact a part of.

What's the expression... "don't take the bait"? There are far worse things happening in the White House for people on both sides of the aisle right now.

[xp84]

Yes, it seems that the #1 lesson he learned from his first term wasn't that you have to have appoint only intense loyalists who will never turn on you, but rather that flooding the channel helps tremendously to cause the important things to blow over more quickly. And the American Left, with their tendency to explode over anything mildly 'offensive,' is absolutely the perfect target for this trolling, since they can be easily trolled with things like this that have zero significance, and are free and legal to do. So that his opponents spend about 90% of their energy fighting the 90% of things that don't matter.

[thepasswordis]

Gulf of America just makes more sense. Calling this the "Gulf of Mexico" would be like calling The Black Sea "The Gulf of Turkey".

[rat87]

Gulf of Mexico is what it has been called so it makes no sense to rename it. Names often dont make sense plus spain and later mexico used to control more territory along the Gulf coatline. Unless you want to piss of one of our most important allies for no reason

[kylehotchkiss]

I agree, the coastline is mostly shared between the two.

Since you brought up Turkey, they renamed themselves recently. Practically a lot of people just can't keep up every countries nuances and just use the old names. It's fine. It seems like a lot of people still use Bombay over Mumbai too ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[thepasswordis]

A funny thing: I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in Mumbai, and there definitely seems to be a significant number of native residents who still call it Bombay. It was to the point where we briefly wondered if this was referring to two different parts of the same city (south of the Sea Link bridge is Bombay, the rest is Mumbai, maybe).

Names are complicated! Germany/Deutschland, Holland/The Netherlands etc.

Interesting that Wikipedia keeps “Turkey”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey

They also keep Gulf of Mexico.

As a programmer: localization is a PITA.

[kylehotchkiss]

Indian government tried giving things 'post-colonial' names but not all of them stuck equally. I do think Bengaluru is a slightly cooler name than Bangalore though!

[BuyMyBitcoins]

I just want Istanbul to go back to being called Constantinople.

[appleorchard46]

Why did it get the works, anyway?

[bee_rider]

There isn’t a continent called America. It could have been called the Gulf of North America if we wanted to go that way.

I think we can acknowledge that this is just kind of stupid and rude but mostly petty without catastrophizing about the whole thing.

Meanwhile people will actually keep calling it whatever they want. Let’s switch it back and forth every time the White House changes teams, the minor confusion will remind us that the US government is only changing what it calls things. The actual name comes from what the majority of people call it.

[packymcclone]

Not sure if this works as an argument, but in this case Google added the new US name even in international versions of Maps as a secondary name. That does feel a bit odd.

[jasperr1]

It is definitely odd. It seems as if Google wants to cozy up to Trump like other tech companies are trying to do.

[BuyMyBitcoins]

I believe it is Google’s policy to show users official map labels based on the geolocation data of the user. If you compare maps between countries with border disputes, the one you’re “in” always shows all of the disputed territory as belonging to that nation.

[oneeyedpigeon]

But this thread is talking about how the label appears to third countries. In this case, we're seeing two names: a) a localised version of the 500-year-old, internationally established name b) another name that someone made up 5 minutes ago.

[throwaway5752]

What was the rationale to do it. Was it in the name of accuracy? Does it further US national interests or have any other benefit?

[kylehotchkiss]

shock-and-awe presidency. Create just enough chaos over meaningless things to help distract people from higher impact legislation (and to slow down court opposition to them, by keeping the courts busy dealing with other nonsense)

[throwaway5752]

And it has the benefit (depending on perspective) of further weakening the US by harming diplomatic relationships with the two nations with contiguous borders.

Canadian statehood and renaming the Gulf of Mexico were never brought up during the campaign. These actions serve no interest other than to antagonize American allies. They weaken the security posture of the United States, and that is ultimately the point, like soon to be DNI Gabbard.

[xp84]

I personally think ALL of his Canada BS is mental, so, no arguments there. But what right does Mexico have to object to what we call a body of water? He's not renaming what we'll call Mexico itself.

These things serve a real purpose which is to troll the easily offended. In that, it's a huge success, as every breath wasted whingeing about this harmless renaming is one that isn't used to ask good questions like "Why fight a trade war with Canada instead of asking why we even have free trade with a country (Mexico) whose wages are so low that it promotes the gutting of American industry." That would be a good question to ask Trump.

We should have a bilateral trade deal with Canada, which would strengthen both countries, and cut Mexico out of it. But all this has distracted from how poorly he's executing his tariff strategy.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

So, no, no national security benefits, no other benefits.

[JKCalhoun]

I'm just here hoping that the billionaires can get a little richer while no one's paying attention.

[kylehotchkiss]

If they were doing something cool with the money, great! But seems like it just gets funneled into yachts and converting perfectly good Hawaiian real estate to doomsday bunkers

[hypothesis]

At least one guy is/was trying to get to Mars or something, potentially spending us all in the process…

[floydnoel]

so far as I can tell, nobody here has stated the real reason that I've heard from conservative circles. Which makes sense, probably very few on this site would ever encounter them.

but anyway, what i heard was that former president passed a bunch of EO's banning all future oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. I guess the easiest way to invalidate them was the rename the Gulf.

[breadwinner]

Vanity of course. Same reason we want Canada and Greenland. Makes us look bigger on a map. Some people think it is because of minerals or national security and so on. But to a narcissist, vanity trumps everything.

[inverted_flag]

Red meat for Trump’s base.

[oneeyedpigeon]

> each country clearly has the right to call international water bodies whatever they want

Sure, but the USA has no more right than any other country to enforce its name on the rest of us, and no right at all to enforce a name for space it does not own.

[dijksterhuis]

> If anyone has an argument that I'm missing something in this assessment, I'm happy to listen.

Hi, British person here. Yeah, we have a bit of, ahem, experience, of showing up to places and just changing place names and stuff because "it's just better that way... according to us". Generally speaking, people didn't like it. Factor in the statements about taking over Canada/Greenland/Palestine/Panama for USA's own personal gains, regardless of whether they are negotiating positions or not, and it sure seems similar to what we used to do "back in the day". You didn't like it when we did it to you. I'm not surprised other people aren't liking it when it either is being done by the USA, or even just appears to be being done as a result of some "negotiating position".

> I doubt any Mexican ever felt the old name was inappropriate.

There's at least one Mexican who believes the old name was appropriate. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cvg6gndgl1ro

> it's obviously arbitrary

If it's arbitrary, why is there a need to change it in the first place? it doesn't matter. it's a body of water. who cares what the name is. we could call it 75928ajfh3845.

so why the need to change it in the first place? (cough see first point cough)

[xp84]

Note: I'm not making any defense of the idiotic Canada/Greenland stuff. I don't approve of it and I won't defend it.

> showing up to places and just changing place names and stuff because

> You didn't like it when we did it to you.

My whole argument was only that international waters between multiple countries is a special case where nobody can claim to be the "rightful" namers, except maybe for an argument that say, Australia or Japan couldn't be taken seriously at naming the Gulf since it doesn't touch any of them.

My point was only that it's a troll that we shouldn't care about.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

We should care that we're being trolled by .... * the POTUS *

[oneeyedpigeon]

> since it doesn't touch any of them

I mean, technically, ...

[stevage]

>But because Trump did it, some Americans find this inherently problematic,

It's not "because Trump did it".

It's very unusual for geographic place names to be renamed at the whim of a single politician. It's extremely unusual for it to happen by fiat, so quickly. It's absolutely unheard of for a feature so large, and shared by more than one country, to be renamed in this way in the modern era.

[xp84]

Wasn’t it Obama who renamed Mt. McKinley by fiat after 100 years, also for political reasons? This is no more important than that decision. Both Presidents had the authority. And while the Gulf itself is shared, there’s no reason both countries automatically call it the same thing. After all, the name actually used by Mexico is in Spanish anyway.

[stevage]

> The name of the highest mountain in North America became a subject of dispute in 1975, when the Alaska Legislature asked the U.S. federal government to officially change its name from "Mount McKinley" to "Denali".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denali%E2%80%93Mount_McKinley_...

Excellent example of what a typical high profile name change looks like: the culmination of decades of effort in renaming. Not a few weeks.

[ytpete]

Besides already being the original indigenous name for the mountain, "Denali" was also the name already in use by many locals and outdoor enthusiasts elsewhere. It was already the name officially used by the Alaska state government, and the state had formally requested the federal government do that same way back in the 70s. Accepting that request is far from changing the name "by fiat" – especially not to a newly invented name that no one was using or asking for.

And that's before you even get into the difference between choosing a name out of respect for an original indigenous name vs. an intentionally jingoistic and self-aggrandizing name chosen to represent a new area of imperial possessiveness.

[xp84]

> intentionally jingoistic and self-aggrandizing name chosen to represent a new area of imperial possessiveness.

It already had such a name, just one probably named by Mexico if I had to guess.

[ytpete]

Considering the word "Mexico" comes from the indigenous people of the region while "America" was a name brought by European colonists... I'm not sure you can really say both of those share the same air of imperial possessiveness.

[chuckadams]

I hate it, it represents the ugly stupid jingoism of the times … but it is the “official” name now, so I can hardly fault Google for updating the name. Myself, I’m calling it the Gulf of Fuck Trump, but a lot of things are going to get that name in my house.

[neilv]

I won't say what I've named after certain regimes, but it involves dietary fiber.

[JumpCrisscross]

> because Trump did it, some Americans find this inherently problematic

Paired with the tariffs on Mexico and Canada, I think it’s more a reaction to what it says about America’s view towards its neighbours.

American power is overwhelming. Theoretically, it should have been balanced by now. It hasn’t because we’ve been a good steward of our alliances. “Gulf of America,” Mare Nostrum; at what point does it become rational for Mexico to seek a security guarantor against America?

“Speak softly, and carry a big stick.” Xi forgot the first part and may have squandered what ought to have been China’s century on account of it. The pushback to a needlessly-provocative imperialesque renaming is American society doing what China’s couldn’t.

(Broadly, I agree with your point. A lot of people are perpetually on Defcon 1. The renaming is dumb. But it isn’t going to undermine America.)