Summary
Rep. Dan Crenshaw criticized Apple Maps for not renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, as mandated by Trump’s recent executive order titled “Restoring Names that Honor American Greatness.”
Crenshaw’s complaint reflects broader conservative frustration, as tech platforms and the global community continue to use the original name.
Critics compare the move to past nationalist gestures like renaming french fries “freedom fries,” accusing conservatives of embracing identity politics and culture wars despite their political dominance.
The name change is unlikely to gain international traction.
Anyone else remember “freedom fries”? That’s what we were supposed to call french fries when conservatives were upset that the French were not supporting the US invasion of Iraq.
But I don’t remember our government wasting time and official action on that. It was just a “popular” movement supported by propaganda
Yeah, it started in WWI.
From a 1976 interview with German-American T. Max Kniesche, who moved to San Francisco in 1907, and worked in restaurants and cafes there:
Teiser: What was it like in San Francisco for Germans during the first world war? You were working at a clearly German restaurant. […]
Teiser: Did you change the kind of food that you served, or the decorations?
Kniesche: Well, the hamburger steak was Liberty Steak. French-fried potatoes were Liberty Potatoes. [laughter] We called it Liberty, but the liberty wasn’t there. Anyhow, everything went to “Liberty.” [laughter]
Remember all the white flag and surrender jokes? Yep, the exact same starting point.
It’s even stupider when you remember that fries are from Belgium.
And that “frenched” is the way they’re cut, not that they have anything to do with the country.
They were right as well
“Mission Accomplished” might be one of the greatest all time. And to think I thought that would be as low as it could get for our country.
Holy shit yes. I remember making fun of the doofus Bush Jr. But holy fuck do I wish him back compared to the current shit show.
Remember how if you didn’t want our boys coming home in flag draped coffins then you “Didn’t support out troops?”
Yes, and sauerkraut was “liberty cabbage” before that.
“Liberty cabbage” sounds very Orwellian. I guess “freedom fries” does too.
It predates 1984 by over 30 years!
I couldn’t care less what the name of that gulf is, however, Trump is right when he says that the US is the ONLY country that pumps money into that entire region. We protect it, monitor it, and it all comes out of American tax dollars. Mexico is just riding our coat tails. I can see why he’d want to change it. Also, the name “Gulf of America” technically includes Mexico…
We freeload off of Mexico. They give us about $160 billion more dollars in goods and services than we give them. They give us about $467 billion worth of stuff, and in return we give them about $309 billion in stuff. In exchange we mostly give them IOUs and other pieces of paper.
Oh, and that’s before we talk about the billions of dollars we steal from the Mexican government. Think of all the talented workers that move from Mexico to the US. That’s millions of people raised and educated on the backs of Mexican taxpayers, who come to the US and never contribute a penny to the Mexican economy.
The US is a giant leech sucking the Mexican economy dry.
Oh brother… sounds like you’re either
A: Ashamed to be in this country, so when are you leaving somewhere else?
B: Don’t live in this country and have spent too much time on Lemmy/Reddit where the USA is constantly attacked as the big bad wolf… until someone needs us, like Ukraine…
Real question here: It is titled “Restoring Names that Honor American Greatness.” - Has the Gulf of Mexico ever been named “Gulf of America” in any reasonable historical context, or is this just the usual made-up “fact” from Donald the Jester?
Nope. But Donzo the clown runs the circus now
Actually, the Gulf of Mexico appears called like that around 1500 AD, when the United States were not even an idea of a nation. So no, it never was called like that because it was named centuries before the US existed.
America is not “The United States” in the context of naming global features on a map. We have two continents call that, for example.
Sure, but the name Gulf of Mexico, actually named Golfo de México since it was a Spaniard who named it, doesn’t come from the country of Mexico, but of the Mexica civilization (aztecs for many but called mexihkah in nahuatl), the name comes from the even older name “seno mexicano” (seno meaning gulf or bay).
If any, the other known name was Gulf of New Spain, but I suppose Turd would rather die than call it such name.
In this vein, I’m ok with calling it Gulf of America, the (super)continent, so long as the denonym for people of the USA also changes, since it’s a continent.
It’s weird how people seem to think that demonyms should match the name of the country exactly…
Should we also say “united kingdomer”?
No. We say English, for England, and Irish for Ireland, and Scottish for Scotland, and Welsh for Wales. French for France. German, Germany. Italian, Italy. Japanese, Japan. Canadian, Canada. Australian, Australia. Brazilian, Brazil. Mexican, Mexico.
I mean come on.
“British” isn’t a thing?
How colonial of you to determine that you get to tell other people what they should be called.
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British does refer to the English blokes though. Don’t call a proud Scotsman that you think him to be British.
Arguably the Welsh and Scots are British, the English are filthy fucking Saxons.
“British” isn’t a thing?
Not really, no.
A Scott wouldn’t because it would associate them with England, a Welshman wouldn’t, because it would associate them with England.
And I wouldn’t, because someone might think I’m Welsh or Scottish. 🤷
"Well I’m going to call you british because you’re from the british isles. "
This is my point - you don’t get to define how others refer to themselves.
Alright folks, time to pick a demonym! Cast your votes on USAians or Absolute Unit[ed State]s.
Just call the whole thing Washington to make things even more confusing.
I vote for Usan, pronounced YOO-sn.
We can just be called usasians or Americans. Africa, Europe, and Australia, watch out we’re gunning for ways to name ourselves after yall too.
USAn people?
Maybe Gulf of (Central) America
Agreed. We should no longer be referred to as Americans, and instead let’s call ourselves the Shitholes.
Agreed, I’ve been trying to move away from the terms “America” and “American” when discussing specifically The United States or it’s people.
Not doing so is often at insult to the majority of people living in the Americas.
They haven’t updated the name in the geographical systems, so nobody is calling it that yet.
There is no gulf with that name anywhere in the world.
You’ll have to go back and figure out what you mean. Feel free to let us know once you find the name of a real gulf.
How does this lower the cost of housing?
Should rename it the Persian gulf or the Arab gulf and watch as people get even more confused.
Executive orders have no control over non-government entities. They are just official instructions given to lower executive office departments on how to operate.
President just orders the police to kill everyone, who names it wrongly…
Now private business can decide if they want to comply or not.
The police forces are managed by state governments, not federal.
President orders the FBI to shoot every local police who doesnt shoot everyone…
Private business, with wealth exceeding that of nations, then hire mercenaries and assassins, and within a week the Senate, House, Judiciary and Executive branches are empty. Now the Federal government can decide if they want to try anything.
Can the president unilaterally change the names of anything he wants? Seems like there at least needs to be a vote on this.
Sure. There’s no need for anybody else to pander to it though.
Can the president unilaterally change the names of anything he wants?
Maybe for things inside his own country. Though the affected local governments may object.
But for bodies of water that contain international waters, and that border other countries? Fuck no he doesn’t.
That’s what an executive order is isn’t it? The pres just saying this is how something is without challenge
An executive order is just official instructions to a lower office on how they are to operate. They have no legal authority outside of that purpose. They are not laws. They do not apply to the public or other businesses.
It’s the equivalent of a supervisor writing memo to the staff that the department break room should have tea instead of coffee. No one outside the company, or even the department, has to obey it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Mexico#Maritime_boundary_delimitation_agreements
Some of the gulf is international waters, and some is owned by Mexico/Cuba. But that was in a world where agreements mattered.
Probably a good time to try and sell maps and globes to red school districts.
You know some friend of the administration already took that spot. It was probably their idea in the first place.
As a Trans person I feel soooo bad /s
Did Dan Crenshaw contact the Gulf to ask how it wants to identify itself?
yes, but it asked to be called “The Rainbow Gulf”… and he decided to maybe forget that ever happened.
For people always calling the others “snowflakes” and “easily triggered”, they sure do have a thin skin.
Wait until iOS Auto Corrects them typing Gulf of America to Gulf of Mexico but only after they hit send.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were so sensitive” is my response to these types IRL.
what’s funny is Trump didn’t directly change the name. that takes time. the relevant naming-people have to take it up and formally do it. All Trump did was order them to, and, uh, that only affects goverment things.
Everybody else, Apple included, are going to be using the familiar name. because Trump is a moron.
Don’t count on it, Apple and Google were both at inauguration
I don’t know… Isn’t naming (and even country boundaries) already localized based on where the users are? Isn’t a possible scenario that Apple and others could show Gulf of America to US users and Gulf of Mexico to everyone else without even spending too much effort?
Yeah there’s already support to name things differently based on your locale. If you have an English locale you see “Germany”. Inside German it’s called Deutschland and if you’re in a Spanish speaking place it’s Alemania.
You could probably distinguish between en-us and en-gb to have different names in the USA and UK.
So yeah I totally think it’s possible.
Great, now I have to chose between correct geographical names and the reasonable spelling words.
I meant something even more radical than translating language. This is Google maps changing borders for disputed territories depending on what side of the dispute the user is: https://theweek.com/speedreads/451127/google-maps-changes-chinas-borders-based-viewers-locations .
I imagine Apple has similar policies too where they adhere to local regulations or just don’t want to piss their users in any country, so they just show everyone what the want to see.
So yes, they do have the tools to do it and on top of that they also have a consolidate tradition of doing it.
No
They’ll follow suit. Apple is not the company people think it is. Tim was at the information along with all the other oligarchy. I know people well make excuses like he had to and blah blah blah. But no he did not. This a a openly gay man who chose to go support people who hate him why because he loves money more.
Well yeah, you don’t get into his position by not loving money more than anything else. Hell, even the infamous George Soros if you actually look at his philanthropy it’s basically “a more tolerant and open society is better for capital”
“Facts don’t care about your feelings snowflake.”
I call them hypocrites, but they don’t care.
Every accusation
It’s always projection with these people.
Always. Especially the pedo stuff.
Maybe, but this is all a distraction from the actions that matter. They don’t want to debate the anti-trans stuff or the immigration stuff, which is objectively bad. They want to debate people not going with a made up name for a thing, which has no objectivity. The longer they can argue about this the less time there is to discuss anything important.
Its not just being thin skinned. It’s a strategy of distraction.
My favorite part is that the soviets beat us to the name
I know this has been said a lot, especially lately, but I think this is the true death knell of satire.
:(
The Gulf of Mexico didn’t choose its supposed new name. This is not deadnaming. Unless there is a positive definition of the word that I’m not aware of, this attempt to rename is the opposite of the meaning. The use of the deadnaming in this context trivializes and distorts what it means. Shame on Gizmodo.EDIT: Sorry, didn’t pick up on the sarcasm.
Its making fun of how Conservatives will deadname actual people but then throw a hissy fit when folks dont immediately change how they refer to something of little relevance. Its drawing attention to their braindead hypocrisy.
Gotcha, thanks for the good-faith explanation. Sometimes I have a hard time picking up on sarcasm. Fuck them reactionary nazis.
Honestly they do this shit every couple of decades usually with food for some fucking reason, best two examples are “Liberty sandwich” with hamburgers and “Freedom fries” with French fries.
