President Donald Trump recently renamed Lake Ontario "Lake America."
Honestly, most Americans probably don't. Unless you live on its shores, I'd be shocked if you could even point to it on a map, given how ignorant most Americans are of geography.
But it's Trump who issued the Aug. 27 executive order, so expect the left's usual outrage – the same reaction we saw when Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America" on day one of his second term. Or when he tried to put his name on the Kennedy Center. Or any of the other times he's stamped his likeness on something.
"If you think about it, we have a gulf, and we have a lake, now all we need is an ocean," Trump said at the signing, clearly trolling the media and other detractors. "So maybe we'll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific."
I don't think Trump is seriously plotting to rename an ocean (though it's Trump, so who knows).
So here's my advice to everyone suddenly attached to the name Lake Ontario: Chill out.
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From his first term, Trump has embraced "America first" as more than a slogan, and there is no clearer way to express this than by literally stamping our country's name on a lake or gulf.
And there's no question that Trump loves naming things after himself. His career was built on hotels and golf courses that bear his name. That means something to him.
So when he added his name to the Kennedy Center last year, it tracked with decades of Trump behavior. But amid all the outrage over the name, a bigger part of the story got lost: Trump has enthusiastically backed investing tens of millions into needed renovations for the cultural icon.
Workers begin adjusting the name of the "John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts" on December 19, 2025 in Washington, DC. The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees voted in what they say was a unanimous decision to rename the facility "The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts."
Workers begin adjusting the name of the "John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts" on December 19, 2025 in Washington, DC.
