{"id":584468,"date":"2026-08-30T00:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T00:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/584468\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T00:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T00:46:10","slug":"the-trouble-with-trumps-attempt-to-rename-lake-ontario","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/584468\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trouble With Trump\u2019s Attempt to Rename Lake Ontario"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mt-8 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">While the standard place naming process is not perfect, it at least establishes an institutional procedure for review, consultation, evidence gathering, and consideration of competing claims before a geographic name is changed. By contrast, what we are witnessing under Trump 2.0 is a unilateral naming by decree or whim with seemingly no public discussion or real government consideration of impacts and consequences.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mt-8 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">It is clear to us that Trump\u2019s renaming of Lake Ontario is symbolic political theater aimed at diverting our attention away from the fallout of his <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/article\/2026\/08\/25\/canada-retaliates-trumps-tariffs-with-levies\/\" target=\"undefined\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">trade war with Canada<\/a>. Yet symbols matter. Place naming is a world-making practice that shapes the very foundations of our geographical imaginations and how we come to know and engage with the world.<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mt-8 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">There is a risk in dismissing Trump\u2019s cartography of mass distraction as a frivolous symbolic tactic, since it can have real consequences for what is taught in classrooms, reconciliation efforts with Indigenous peoples, and the badly needed repair of relations between the United States and Canada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the standard place naming process is not perfect, it at least establishes an institutional procedure for review,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,135,147],"class_list":["post-584468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-politics","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}