Eager to spite his imaginary nemesis Canada, President Donald Trump has renamed Lake Ontario “Lake America,” and Google has obediently changed its maps. Apple has received a personal request from Trump to do the same, and the media will have to choose as well. Here’s a modest proposal for them all: Tell Trump to go jump in a lake.
Even more importantly, Congress should tell him the same. Trump appears to have the power to make the federal government use “Lake America.” The U.S. Board on Geographic Names and the federal naming system exist to standardize terminology across the government, and the president controls the executive branch.
Federal maps and agencies can therefore say Lake America, and Cabinet members can use the fake name as often as they like. But Congress created the modern federal geographic naming machinery, and Congress can legislate geographic names. It could theoretically pass a law restoring Lake Ontario, reminding many of a constitutional fact they've forgotten: The president is not the government.
Of course, there’s little chance the current Congress will do any such thing. Republicans control both chambers and have shown little appetite for challenging a president who dominates their party. That makes this, like so much else about Trump’s second presidency, an issue for the midterm elections in November.
This raises the stakes in those elections even beyond the usual referendum on Trump’s successes, failures and bizarre behavior. Through this prism, voters will also decide whether Congress should continue behaving as a supporting player in a government increasingly dominated by the presidency, or begin reclaiming the authority the Constitution gave it. Congress has spent decades allowing presidents of both parties to fill the space it has vacated, but it is hardly powerless.
It writes the laws, controls federal spending, oversees executive agencies and determines how much authority those agencies receive in the first place. It is easier to be lemmings, but it’s not right, and it’s not American; it can cause damage. Lake America is a wonderfully absurd demonstration.
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