Indeed. While I was surprised by the name, I quickly noticed that this was a vibes-based reaction.
I'm British by birth, I grew up with news stories about the IRA, and the second-largest city in Northern Ireland is either "Derry" or "Londonderry" depending on if you're a Republican* or a Unionist.
The English Channel, if you're French, is La Manche.
And if Germany was "renamed" by another country, it would signify a shift of something. Just like the difference you mentioned are based on massively important historical events.
> Where does it end though? If he decides tomorrow to start calling Canada "Beaverland," will all our maps change again?
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> why waste time and energy discussing silly things he might do when he is literally doing silly things now, for real?
The example used was making a larger point than, oh no, "Canada -> Beaverstan", for laughs.
The point is: What line would be too far for industry to resist presidential renaming by fiat. A kind of power with known risks. Renaming by fiat has a name, "Newspeak", a term coined in the not very silly book, 1984, by George Orwell.
Trump has a history of doing lots of "silly" things just to see if he can. It is a low risk way for him to pre-test, or pre-expand, any barriers to more serious expressions of his power. Such as renaming things in a way that undermines or alters the impact of laws.
Again. The specific hypothetical wasn’t the point.
It is what is called an“illustrative” or “hypothetical exemplar”. Ignore the specific example, focus on the point being made:
What limit is there to Trump taking things further? Because Trump has a track record of taking things further.
It is not a randomly improbable premature neurotic conjecture actually about Canada or “Beaverland”. Those are stand-ins for a larger point.
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Also, a democracy is supposed to decentralize power. The more decentralized, the more each citizen has equal power.
But the US Constitution, with all its checks and balances, managed not to limit the power of political parties.
So the US system degenerates into only two viable national parties, with highly centralized power within each. Only two nationally viable candidates, neither chosen by an actual democratic process.
Just one more candidate, chosen by the powerful, than an autocracy.
We could call this “Minimal Viable Democracy”, as any less democratic would not be democratic at all.
Without experience with a better system, most US citizens are in a Stockholm situation. They talk about their “great” system because at one time it was a big improvement. But 250 years later it is just the flawed system they are stuck in. Better to keep calling it “great”, no matter how many re-centralizing-of-power dysfunctions accumulate without resolution, than get too depressed.
If I remember correctly the US system doesn’t really take parties into consideration because parties were an afterthought and not really supposed to be a thing.
If you don’t like it, there are more options than sitting around for four years hoping another bought and paid for candidate in the two party state will be better.
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants”.
If you don’t wish to commit violence, there are other effective methods to enact change, although in the US the chances appear small.
Well, the "Gulf of America" nonsense is also shown here, in brackets after "Gulf of Mexico." So it seems like they're not content with just keeping it to the US as originally stated.
> Also longstanding practice: When official names vary between countries, Maps users see their official local name. Everyone in the rest of the world sees both names. That applies here too.
A great idea! I rather like beaver-land it sounds like such a wonderful place.
In all seriousness this started in trumps first term when he insisted on changing NAFTA to USMCA while canada calls it CUSMA and Mexico calls it T-MEC … so it’s the no one agrees on anything agreement
Maybe Trump's plan to make Canada part of the United States, just rename Canada to the "United States" in the GNIS database and they appear part of the same country (at least within the real "United States" borders, Google implements names based on a Geo fence for each country).
