So now we're in a fight for the honour of Lake Ontario.
Really?
Once again, this proves what I first wrote 20 years ago and have repeated it several times since - we don't get to choose the battle, we only get to choose our side.
Whether its tyranny or fascism or racism or the patriarchy or corporate greed or environmental degradation (or pick your own adventure), we usually don't have the luxury of waiting for exactly the "right" issue to be upset about. The battle lines are usually drawn long before we get there, over some event or situation or outrage or tragedy.Usually its something pretty serious - like deciding who can be married, or watching a black man crushed by police, or stopping ICE Gestapo rounding up innocents. But other times the event is sorta trivial, really - like Trump trolling Canada by changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America.
Really, Trump? That's all you've got? Its just so silly stupid dumb.
But we can't just turn away, and think its OK to ignore it, to wait until something more important happens.
While Americans have to shame themselves by bending the knee to Trump's stupidity, we don't. Canada can stand up. We can choose our side. And all across the country, we're doing it.
Dear Mr Rapist, Lake Ontario is named as such in the Treaty of Canandaigua, signed by President George Washington and ratified by Congress in 1795. An executive order can’t override it, you stupid, uneducated arsehole.
— Jeff Rudd 🇮🇪 🇨🇦 🇵🇸 (@jeffrudd.bsky.social) August 31, 2026 at 11:39 PM
[image or embed]
Premier Doug Ford unveiled a Lake Ontario sign at a park on the shores of the Great Lake on Saturday, two days after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to change its name to Lake America. 🔗 www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...
— The Globe and Mail (@theglobeandmail.com) August 29, 2026 at 12:57 PM
[image or embed]
In the Globe and Mail, columnist Shannon Proudfoot writes Welcome to the Map Resistance:
...On the same day that U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America, MapQuest – yes, that MapQuest, whose sheafs of printed directions guided so many early-2000s road trips – posted a simple, blunt message: “We’re not changing it.”American suck-ups are falling into line
And with that, the mapping company you didn’t even know was still in business became a mascot of the resistance to the President’s penchant for renaming geographical features in the manner of a dog raising his hind leg next to a fire hydrant....
Over the weekend, social media was filled with people declaring they would install MapQuest and jettison Google Maps, after the tech giant announced on Saturday that it had switched to Lake America on its own maps. Google said it did so to match the U.S.’s Geographic Names Information System, citing a company policy to align with official government sources.
“People using Maps in the U.S. will see ‘Lake America,’ those in Canada will continue to see ‘Lake Ontario,’ and those outside of the U.S. and Canada will see both names,” Google said, in a blog post accompanied by a graphic showing the body of water labelled as “Lake Ontario (Lake America)” for international users.
The Royal Canadian Geographical Society, on the other hand, sailed in to wave the rebel flag. Rosemary Thompson, senior vice-president external, wrote in Policy magazine that as far as her organization is concerned, “Lake Ontario is still Lake Ontario.” ... “The Great Lakes don’t need anyone to tell them to be great again,” Ms. Thompson wrote over the weekend about the latest geographic aggression from the Oval Office. “No ego-boosting is required; we all know they are great.”
This is the map resistance. Please collect your compass, your pens and your parchment. We ride at dawn.
The whole Trump administration is joining in Trump's "Blame Canada" club now
View on Threads
View on Threads
What Trump and his administration don't realize
View on Threads
View on Threads
On his substack, Timothy Snyder writes
...At the center of this you see one of Trump’s weaknesses. He has spent his whole life ripping people off. He is therefore unable to imagine an exchange that is not someone being ripped off. He lives in obvious fear that this time it might be him. And so getting him to start a trade war with Canada must be very easy: you just wave some numbers in front of him and explain that a trade deficit means that he personally is getting ripped off.
Trump has had a similar personal experience with politics, which leads to a similar misunderstanding. He has been able to win presidential elections while openly scorning his country and its people. He has no notion of patriotism, no sense that the United States is anything other than a piggybank to be broken. He lacks any concept of sovereignty -- that a polity exists beyond the whims and the greed of the people in charge.
This means that Trump can respect people like Vladimir Putin, who have done what he has done, but more effectively. But he cannot understand people who are patriots, who do care about their own country and people, who see sovereignty as a reality and as a value.
So he will fail to predict... the actions of Canadian elected officials such as Mark Carney, the federal prime minister, or Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario. He expects them to fold, because that would be the personally easy thing to do, and what he would do himself. But they won’t, because for Canada the situation is existential, and they care about Canada’s existence.
The two men represent two different political parties, and take opposing positions on many issues. But both understand that the American approach to Canada is designed to undermine Canadian sovereignty, and both -- unlike Trump -- care about the future of their own country.
The same holds for Canadians generally. We can hurt them, and they can hurt us; but Americans generally see no point in our aggressive trade policy, whereas Canadians generally do see a point in Canada’s self-defense. (In one poll, more Americans supported the Canadian response than the American aggression.)
When Canada responded to the US tariffs, as it had no choice but to do, Trump’s people had to raise the level of their own delusion by claiming that Canada was too weak to do what it was in fact doing. This argument was supported by a legion of stereotypes meant to show that Canada is not a real country.
Interestingly, one argument that is often used is that Canada does not exist because it has health care. The reality is quite the opposite; a country that can create a national health care system is more aware of its own existence, because of the experience of solidarity which enables everyone to thrive thanks to everyone else. We are less of a country because we are unable to do this.
However senseless it is, American rhetoric of the non-existence of Canada is concerning, because it resembles the way the Kremlin spoke about Ukraine, and rightly reminds Canada that their sovereignty is indeed the issue.
But if Canada responds, as it has, Trump has no next move. If Canada acts as a sovereign state he has no answer. There is no political support at home for his trade policy. It baffles even his own political party. Threats of actual war, though made, are hollow; we are losing one war already, our defense secretary is busily degrading the army and cancelling basic modernization programs — and a country that opposes a trade war with Canada is unlikely to want to invade it. Indeed, huge majorities of Americans still describe Canadians as friends.
The embarrassing decision to start calling Lake Ontario “Lake America” is really an admission of defeat. If we can’t understand the basics of economics and politics, if we must lose a trade war to Canada while we are losing a shooting war to Iran, let us least paste our name somewhere....
Over the last year, Carney has led Canada to understand the issues and to support his approach.
In particular, he has generally avoided getting into spats with premiers and mayors, plus his international credibility and contacts have put the world on Canada's side.
I think its working - Carney won all three of the byelections on Monday.
View on Threads
View on Threads
View on Threads
Even Americans are fed up. Here's John Cole from Balloon Juice:
I'm at my breaking point after this stunt by those feckless subservient twats at Google- the next democratic administration needs to rip those mother fuckers apart at the seems they need to be broken up into so many pieces it will make the baby bell's look like child's play
— Cake or Death (@johngcole.bsky.social) August 30, 2026 at 5:48 PM
Rachel Maddow thinks its sort of funny, but she makes a point too:
I'm not sure how long this will last but for now its good
Finally, a Canadian story:
Other commentsThis is unbelievable. Trump personally called Apple to pressure them into renaming Lake Ontario and as we know Google already caved. It was Lake Ontario before Trump. It will be Lake Ontario after Trump. 🇨🇦 #ElbowsUp #CanadaStrong #USDemocracy #RisingBlue
— Marie 🇨🇦 (@pawbaby2.bsky.social) August 31, 2026 at 9:41 PM
[image or embed]
View on Threads
View on Threads
View on Threads
Finally, a Canadian story:
View on Threads
View on Threads
3 comments:
Did I call it or what? When Trump started his crap about renaming Lake Ontario, I posted some lyrics after my comment. Today, the CBC reports that
When the lyrics of Blue Rodeo's Hasn't Hit Me Yet reverberated over the shore of Lake Ontario Saturday, they morphed into a rallying cry for Canadians following U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order to change the lake's name to "Lake America."
Yes you did!
There was a novel written way back in 1973 by Richard Rhomer titled Ultimatum. Are we starting to live it now? (Guess who wins … )
UU
Post a Comment