The Left Tries to Maintain Its Grip on the Dictionary
President Trump, now sworn into office, has wasted no time implementing his campaign promises. He has already signed a nearly overwhelming number of executive orders on a range of issues in just the first few days of his presidency—axing government DEI programs, securing the border, and pardoning pro-life prisoners, to name just a few. He has even challenged birthright citizenship, though it remains to be seen what will come of this as litigation is underway.
In the White House—no longer an ornate and impressively secure old folks’ home—resides a leader who, like few before him, is wielding authority like a president truly vested with “the executive power” of the United States.
Even Moldbug is impressed.
One particular item on Trump’s agenda, however, has drawn ridicule from both sides of the aisle: his plan to rename the “Gulf of Mexico” the “Gulf of America.” For some, with so many vital policies to implement before the midterm elections, this seems needlessly provocative and a waste of time and energy. Trump has also discussed acquiring Greenland and taking back the Panama Canal, but these plans can be tied to legitimate national security concerns. Renaming the Gulf is different. America won’t be gaining any territory or resources. At best, Google Maps will slap a new label on this body of water, which we already dominate. All this represents is Trump’s America-first machismo at its most embarrassing.
On the Left, of course, sentiments have generally reflected this post from the account Public Citizen:
But even some on the right have found it silly:
I want to suggest that not only these perspectives, but even those in favor of the change just because it’s cool and masculine and Trump’s idea may be missing the underlying significance of this ordered rebrand.
Trump understands something that many on the Right have failed to grasp for far too long: words matter and Conservatives must start engaging in the battle over the dictionary. In an important way, the “Gulf of America” represents an attack against every attempt to reduce American influence—to favor every other culture over America—driven by a deep-seated hatred of its values and heritage.
The Left has long understood that by renaming and redefining, it can mold reality as it wishes. Even small changes can have a significant effect. For example, not long ago every member of the legislative body was a “congressman;” this was understood to be an unsexed term. Later, in an effort to stress individual identity, “congresswoman” was added to our vocabulary. And now, as the Left has increasingly emphasized personal identity and multiplied the number of genders, news outlets routinely use the term “congressperson.”
By reshaping language in this way, the Left has made space in our lexicon for the ever-expanding range of “gender identities” and other progressive departures from the sex binary. The transgender movement has contributed far more ridiculous terms such as “birthing person,” “chestfeeding” and “parenting partner.” These may have been newly invented, but they validate transgender existence and the philosophy undergirding it.
This is why the Left cares so deeply about pronouns. Just as using the term “birthing person” is to validate transgenderism as a concept, so using correct pronouns is to affirm that a person’s identity is not fixed but is subject to that person’s feelings and desires. These changes relating to sex are the most extreme example of this effort to redefine reality, but they serve as a potent example of the ways in which words can shape the world.
Because the Left has also maintained a stranglehold on America’s institutions, these changes have managed to burrow their way into a place of semi-permanence in the American system. A shocking example of their machine at work occurred during Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing. Barrett mentioned “sexual preference,” which Senator Mazie Hirono condemned as “an offensive and outdated term.” Within hours, Webster’s Dictionary added an “offensive” label to “sexual preference” to solidify this new meaning. (See Fox News, 2020)
There is just as much at stake in the names of physical landmarks, and here, as elsewhere, the Left has outpaced the Right. Recently, for example, as part of concerted efforts to remove all remnants of the Confederacy in the South, Fort Bragg was renamed Fort Liberty. This might seem pedantic—nothing changed about the location itself—but the Left understood that as long as the Fort remained Bragg, a Confederate general would be remembered and honored. In order to erase this man from history and memory, they insisted the name be changed.
In 2015, President Obama changed America’s tallest mountain from Mt. Mckinley to Denali, its Native Alaskan name. The significance of this act was not lost on the New York Times:
“Denali’s name has long been…regarded as an example of cultural imperialism in which a Native American name with historical roots was replaced by an American one having little to do with the place.” NYT, 2015.
Obama’s order was no trivial act. It was a deliberate attempt to retract America’s footprint in the world, driven by a theory that holds America to be a privileged country, whose founders were evil slave-holders, and whose very existence is an affront to minority cultures. This attitude has driven virtually every action taken by the Left over the last decade; they want to diminish American culture and dominance wherever possible.
All of this is why Trump’s order to rename the Gulf is so significant. It signals that he recognizes the battle being fought over the dictionary and is willing to go on the offensive. By renaming the Gulf the “Gulf of America,” Trump is explicitly pushing back against the Left’s efforts to shrink America’s influence and is, instead, expanding it. He is saying, in effect, “America is great. The more things identified with America, the better.” (Trump has also reinstated Denali as Mt Mckinley.)
He is fighting this battle in other areas as well. For instance, he has declared that the government will only recognize one’s sex at birth and has declared that male and female sex are determined at conception.
Trump’s efforts to redefine and rename should be seen as a unified assault on the Left’s attempt to shape the world according to its perverse ideologies. The Gulf of America is not cringy. It is part of a battle the Right has long needed to fight—part of a battle for reality itself. And with the power of the people’s mandate behind him, Trump is making all the right moves.
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