Trump floats America's third map rename in two weeks, over a governor's objection it 'isn't up for debate'

…(cont) The first attempt on its life came August 27, when Mr. Trump signed an executive order retitling Lake Ontario "Lake America," effective immediately. Google complied within seventy-two hours, describing the change in a statement that read like a compliance memo: the U.S. Geographic Names Information System had "formally changed" the name, and Google Maps had merely followed along. Apple Maps followed Google the next Tuesday. A lake shared with Canada now carries one country's brand name in two of the phones most Americans use to find it.

Six days later came the norm's second death, dressed as a joke that wasn't one. With diesel prices climbing toward records because of a war his own administration started with Iran, Mr. Trump mused on social media about renaming the Strait of Hormuz — a waterway the United States does not own and never has — "Trump Strait," on the theory that, like America itself, it would be "hotter than ever before." It was a penny-ante flourish for a war already costing drivers real money at the pump.

Its third death arrived at home. The White House posted a map showing New Mexico relabeled "New America." Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham answered the way you answer a bill collector who has the wrong address: flatly, in writing. New Mexico's name, she said, isn't up for debate — it's been hers since before the country doing the renaming existed. What is up for debate, she added, is who's showing up for working families, a subject the map did not address.

The norm is survived by the cartographers who still have to print the atlases, and by whichever federal office inherits the next label change. It is preceded in death by the idea that a president's own name is not, by itself, a geographic feature.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you check the name on your own state's welcome sign, and call your representative if it starts to look unfamiliar.