Trump orders all maps to name everything America.

President Trump signed an executive order on Monday requiring the federal government to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” on official maps – a change that could take months to enact and may or may not be immediately reflected on the digital maps Americans use daily.

“The Gulf of America – which has a beautiful ring,” Trump said at a news conference at Mar-a-Lago on January 7. “The Gulf of America, what a beautiful name and it’s appropriate.”

Unless, of course, you want to know where you are.

We could rename the Atlantic the America, and do the same to the Pacific, and then rename all the countries to the south and the east and the west and the north America. We could, but it would make travel and shipping and weather forecasting difficult.

Here’s the thing: we’re already in America, we know where it is; what we need to know about a large body of water to the south of us is where it is. Calling it the Gulf of Mexico is a big stonking clue, while calling it the Gulf of America just leaves us where we are.

It’s not dissing America (aka the US) to call the body of water between Florida and Mexico the Gulf of Mexico, it’s just a piece of information. It’s like a road sign. You don’t want all the road signs to say America, no matter how adorably patriotic that would be. You want the road signs to tell you where you are.

Capeesh?