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There are presidents who can change the world, leaders like FDR who dictated policy, commanded a World War, and transformed his country into a superpower; and then there is Donald Trump, who has apparently decided that if reality refuses to cooperate, the next sensible step is to rename the furniture.
It is an ingenious system, really. When Trump cannot easily change reality, he changes the story about reality — and when even that is difficult, he changes the name on the map. It saves an enormous amount of bother. No need to persuade Canada or Mexico. No need to defeat Iran. No need to negotiate with anyone whatsoever. Simply get a large map, a very thick marker, and someone from his immediate entourage like the "Human Printer".
Thus Lake Ontario has become Lake America.
Now, before anyone in Toronto panics, the lake has not actually moved. It has not crossed the border, applied for American citizenship, or started singing “God Bless America” at dawn. The fish remain stubbornly bilingual. Canadians will presumably continue calling it Lake Ontario, which is terribly inconsiderate of them. But within the American federal government, the lake is now to be called Lake America.
This is the sort of thing that makes one wonder whether somewhere in Washington there is a woman whose entire job consists of standing beside Donald Trump with a giant eraser.
“Right, sir. What shall we change today?”
“Lake Ontario, sweetheart.”
“Ontario, sir?”
“Too Canadian.”
“Very good, sir. What shall we call it?”
“Lake America.”
“Excellent, sir. Shall I do the province as well?”
“No. Leave the land. We haven't got that far yet.”
The remarkable thing is that this is not an isolated eccentricity. Trump already renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. Now he has Lake Ontario. And once you begin renaming geographical features according to one's political mood, you enter a wonderfully dangerous world in which the Atlantic Ocean is presumably only one disappointing television interview away from becoming the East American Ocean.
The Pacific might become the West American Ocean.
Niagara Falls could be renamed American Falls. And Mount Everest, if it were unfortunate enough to be within executive reach, would presumably become Mount Tremendous.
This is where the whole business becomes rather more interesting than a joke about a president with an unusually enthusiastic felt-tip pen. Geography is one of the few domains where presidential rhetoric can produce an immediate visual victory without necessarily producing a corresponding change in reality.
You can put “Lake America” on an American government map in five minutes. You cannot put Canada on its knees in five minutes.
You can announce that the Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America. You cannot make Mexico agree.
You can announce American supremacy over a strategically vital waterway. You cannot make geography, shipping, Iran, insurance companies and international diplomacy obey an executive order.
Ah, but the map looks marvellous. And that is the genius of it. The map does not argue back. The lake does not hold a press conference. The Gulf does not appear on television and say, “Actually, Donald, I rather prefer Mexico.”
Maps are wonderfully obedient objects. They sit there quietly while presidents scribble on them. They are the ideal constituency for a man who has discovered that the universe itself is rather less accommodating.
Reality, unfortunately, is a tough customer. Reality insists on things like trade deficits, tariffs, military logistics, shipping routes, alliances, negotiations, economic consequences and other terribly dull matters that cannot be fixed by putting gold letters on a map.
Reality also has the irritating habit of producing outcomes. And outcomes are dangerous things for a president whose political gift has always been the ability to make the announcement of victory sound remarkably similar to victory itself.
Trump understands branding. He understands television. He understands the photograph. He understands the grand declaration. He understands that if you stand behind a large map and point at something with sufficient confidence, millions of people will at least spend the afternoon discussing what you've pointed at.
That’s no small feat, and it’s certainly not “nothing.” In fact, it’s downright clever, especially when you realize that Republicans have a unique talent for believing just about anything you say. So why wrestle with complex political realities when you can just scribble a new name on a map and call it a day? After all, who needs negotiations when you have a Sharpie? A genuine strategic victory can take years. A symbolic victory takes a Sharpie.
And so we arrive at what might be called the Trump Theory of Presidential Achievement: if you cannot control the thing itself, control the noun describing the thing. It is breathtakingly economical. Why conquer territory when you can rename it? Why persuade an ally when you can insult it? Why demonstrate strategic superiority when you can announce it? Why accept an ambiguous outcome when you can simply declare a tremendous one? This is particularly useful when the real world becomes inconvenient.
Suppose a president finds himself confronted by a war that refuses to produce the decisive victory he promised. Well, one might attempt negotiations. One might reconsider objectives. One might explain the limits of military power. Or — and this is the Trump innovation — one might explain that everything is going brilliantly.
And if everything is not going brilliantly? Well, then everything is going brilliantly in a different way. And if that still doesn't work?
Rename something.
The deeper point is not that Trump is incapable of understanding the difference between a symbol and a material achievement. He may understand it perfectly well. The more interesting possibility is that he knows symbols are politically useful precisely because they can create the appearance of achievement without requiring the underlying reality to change.
That is where his old talent for branding becomes politically relevant.
The Trump brand was never merely a collection of buildings. It was a proposition: Trump means success. The gold lettering did not constitute the success; it advertised the success. The television persona did not establish the business empire; it amplified the mythology surrounding it.
The presidency has provided the largest billboard imaginable. And when the billboard says victory, there is no requirement that the footnote read terms and conditions may apply. This may also explain the extraordinary attraction of symbolic contests to his political movement. A complicated geopolitical outcome is difficult to explain at a rally. A lake is easy.
Well, there is a great weakness in symbolic power: it depends upon the other fellow agreeing to participate in the symbolism. Trump can rename Lake Ontario. He cannot make Canadians call it Lake America. He can rename the Gulf of Mexico. He cannot force the entire planet to forget what it has called the place for centuries. He can declare victory. But reality has an unfortunate habit of keeping the score. And perhaps that is the real comedy of the Trump era.
The president keeps trying to negotiate with reality as though reality were a property developer who has just walked into his office. And reality, being reality, carries on regardless.
That is the extraordinary political trick at the centre of it all: when Trump cannot change reality, he changes the story; when he cannot change the story, he changes the name; and when the name still fails to change reality, he announces that the whole thing was a tremendous success anyway.
One can only hope that the Atlantic Ocean is taking notes.
Because if it isn't careful, it'll be next.
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