Story thread · 2 reports / 2 sources

A sinister pattern takes shape as Trump takes another wild swing with his hatchet

rawstory.com · 8dShare

It’s one thing for Trump to usurp powers that belong to Congress — quite another for him to usurp places that belong to all of us. I’m talking about his renaming and demolishing what we share in common. Trump said he “decided” to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America because he was pissed off at Canada. How can one man decide to change the name of one of the Great Lakes — a name that we all learned when we were in elementary school? Not only is it part of our shared heritage; it’s part of our common reality. Well-known place names anchor us. They provide a shared set of markers by which we navigate ourselves and situate others. By what right can he arbitrarily rob us of them? He’s also changed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. He’s even considering renaming the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. A U.S. president has legal authority to instruct the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to update official maps and domestic databases. But that’s to maintain uniformity — quite the op

First report: The dark psychology behind Trump’s ‘place robbery’ should scare you — alternet.org, 8d