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.
Wait, that really happened? I thought the gulf of Mexico renamed shit was just memeing. Google maps still shows the proper name instead of the tantrum name.
The president ordered it. There is no legal mechanism to compel private companies to use the new name.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/restoring-names-that-honor-american-greatness/
There is also no legal mechanism to require any other country on the planet to pay attention to Trump’s stupid and pointless attempt at renaming it.
If anything they’ll just show the new name to people in the US.
Google Maps does a lot of regional fuckery to comply with local lunatics. Indians see Kashmir as part of India, for example.
I mean, that’s every multinational company.
My job has international offices and during stand-ups, we get things like “Hey EU needs this thing. So figure it out engineers.” And we do the bare minimum to meet the requirements because bro I’m just trying to code and make a paycheck.
Have u ever been to Kashmir?
Nope.
I do vaguely remember seeing the bonkers border ceremony in a Michael Palin travel show from about 30 years ago. Seemed competitive, yet oddly friendly.
Not familiar with the show but that was definitely the Atari border ceremony at wagah in Amritsar, Punjab and not Kashmir.
Either way, don’t try to equate anything happening near Kashmir to what is happening here. Those are land borders with people living on either side with very real tangible “everyday” problems to whatever pax Americana you have going on in the US.
Technically can I name it Gulf of Trump can kiss my ass?
I’ll cosign
Edit: co-sign? Fuck it…I’m going to bed
I’d cosine, but I’d probably find myself on a tangent
Uuuuuuugh…happens to me alllll the time…
I have a feeling we’re going to be seeing a lot of “I didn’t think he would really do ____” in the coming weeks and months.
I was under no such illusions. He has no one to stop him this time around.
I mean, in this case, he has the rest of the English-speaking world to stop him with stupid renaming. If everyone just refuses to call it anything other than the Gulf of Mexico, it’s not like he can do anything about it, especially if they’re outside of the US.
Any trade or boundary or treaty agreement from now on between the U.S. and another country is going to have to work this out. Yes, that’s a smaller issue than a lot of others, but it is an issue.
Meanwhile, inside the U.S., this renaming is going to cost Americans billions of dollars in things like new signage, new official maps, etc.
It never will happen. We all keep calling it what it is, the gulf of Mexico. Easy.
It will be interesting to see what openstreetmap do - they have an “on the ground principle” that says to look at what the local signs say when naming something, but the data is tagged with a load of references to NOAA pages on historical treaties that the US signed (which obviously used the normal name for that area)
Fuck, is he actually trying to null out some treaties?
Pretty sure he’s going after all of them.
I thought “we’ll build a wall and have Mexico pay for it” was just shit-talking, too.
Trump has the habit of saying shit like this. His opponents will say “Oh god the cringe, it hurts”. His supporters will say “Oh shit, I didn’t think that we have to actually implement this? This will cause all sorts of expensive problems.”
To be fair, that was just shit talking. He may have started building the wall, but Mexico didn’t pay for it