I don’t know how to explain to you that although nobody can stop him from proclaiming whatever he wants, nobody can force anybody else to go along with anything that doesn’t have any legal basis.
GNIS is not the system of record for the names of states. It’s a system of record for where to find geographical features, which includes mentioning what state they’re in. So I guess it’s plausible that he could amend it to say that the Grand Canyon is located in Trumpizona, sure. But that doesn’t create any state named Trumpizona, nor rename the state of Arizona, and anyway a silly change like that could be trivially undone by a future administration.
I acknowledge that you’re correct. Which is possibly why every single state is not currently named after the Orange Narcissist. But the names of national and international landmarks and bodies of water are all in peril until a sane administration sets them all back again.
No. All that’s in peril is the way they are referred to the GNIS.
The name of a geographical feature is a matter of fact. What people call it, that’s its name. That’s what the word “name” means. Lake Ontario is still named “Lake Ontario” because everybody in the world outside a few US government officials and a few drivelling sycophants calls it “Lake Ontario”. Trump cannot change this by issuing a decree pronouncing that it is now called “Lake America”; the only way he can change this is by persuading people in general actually to call it “Lake America”. Good luck with that.
The name of a political structure such as a state is slightly different. Lake Ontario has a physical reality which persists even if there is nobody around to see it, much less name it. But a state only exists because humans agree, in a formal kind of way, to create it. A state is created by law in a way that a lake is not, and it’s highly arguable that one of the characteristics of the state, its name, is a product of that process.
In the context of the US you can argue abour whether a state is created by the federal power, or whether its created by its people. And you could probably argue that the answer may be different for different states. And from there you can have fascinating arguments about whether the state adopts its own name, and can change it, or Congress confers a name on it, and can change it. But I don’t see any argument that the President can change the name of a state; the President didn’t create the state, or name it, in the first place.
Right. The reserved sovereign powers of the individual state includes setting up and modifying their own corporate name. Though since in this case it just went to officialize the common-everyday-usage (plus its name having preexisted the federation) it was no biggie.
Trump isn’t actually renaming anything. He spouts a dumb meme on social media, and his cultists and assorted corporate suck-ups hop on board. But it’s all imaginary and not tangible. Look at the Kennedy Center- he’s been feverishly trying to tie his name to that institution, and so far all he’s accomplished is to shut the place down.
Nitpick: the official name of the state changed from the “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations” to the “State of Rhode Island”.
I work with state and municipal governments all the time. The “State of…” or “Commonwealth of…” or “City of…” is part of the legal name.
Here in Connecticut, there is a “City of Groton” and a “Town of Groton.” (Counterintuitively, the jurisdiction of the city is surrounded by that of the town, because the town is a sub-county division, what some other states call “townships.) Anyway, the “City of Groton” and “Town of Groton” are two different legal entities.
So if you are talking about a geographical area, you can certainly refer to Connecticut or Rhode Island, but if you are talking about official names, then you have to add the “State of…”, etc.
I lived in New York State for a while and similarly there were villages and towns with the same name, like the village of Ossining in the town of Ossining.