What's in a name?

Donald Trump, for reasons best known to himself -- and I mean that quite literally in this case, no one else seems to know, at all -- has chosen to rename Lake Ontario, "Lake America", at least for purposes of American map makers. I very much doubt anyone else will pay any attention at all. Now, whatever else you might say about him, Donald Trump is indeed rather interesting. He likes to try things out for fun. I guess this is an example of it. Or, maybe not. Maybe there's some purpose to renaming Lake Ontario, "Lake America", that seems to elude the rest of us, for some reason. This morning I was listening to NPR radio, and, they suggested that this was for the purpose of acquiring "leverage" with Canada in the contentious -- of course, everything with Donald Trump is contentious -- trade negotiations and tariff negotiations that are currently occurring between the US and Canada. Why would this name change give Donald Trump "leverage" in pressuring Canada during trade negotiations? What's in a name? Surely, Canadians would merely see this gesture as a silly and irrelevant kind of grandstanding by a disinformation specialist somewhat past his prime, who is no longer capable of discerning when his disinformation will be effective, and when it will merely be be laughed off as a kind of ridiculous joke. Put another way, Donald Trump has become a salesman who no longer has anything to sell. What is more interesting, however, is why exactly Donald Trump did this, since its impact on trade negotiations is necessarily absolutely nill. What is Trump thinking, exactly? Obviously, Trump must be thinking that this name change somehow does give him some kind of leverage in his negotations with Canada on trade and tariffs. Why, exactly? I suppose NPR is just going along with this assumption of Trump, perhaps out of some kind of loyalty to the US President, or, perhaps just to create a kind of excitement about it to generate good ratings for their news programs. Probably the latter, actually. But in Trump's case, I think he really is incapable of thinking, or at least publicly stating, that he is helpless or incompetent. He just can't do it. He never has. So, Trump must believe that he really is accomplishing something by this particular name change, simply because it's about the only thing he can think of doing. Trump's self-imposed logic goes something like this -- This name change is all I can do to Canada I am Donald Trump, and am very important Therefore, this name change must be very important. Q.E.D. Something like that, anyway. You see, in Trumpland, which is all Trump has going on in his brain anymore, Trump's self-imposed logic rules. Always. #philosophy #metaphysics #epistemology #logic #semantics #linguistics #philology #geopolitics #trump #donaldtrump #canada #freetrade #tariffs #psychology #psychoanalysis #npr #funny