A Gulf of Ignorance

 The news last week was hard to stomach. One can take one's pick of Trump's travesties from his first week back in the Oval Office—but one event stands out in my mind as emblematic of all the others. It is the fact that Trump's Interior Department really did go ahead and legally rename the Gulf of Mexico. A formal press release declares it is now known as the "Gulf of America." 

One hardly knows where to begin, with that one. There is the mindless chauvinism, obviously—mindless because, among other reasons, Mexico is as much a part of the "Americas" as we are, if it comes to that. We are operating at the mental level here of the narrator of Randy Newman's "Political Science"—except this is our actual president and our actual Interior Department speaking. 

I'd compare the jingoistic stupidity on display here to the "freedom fries" fiasco—but that would really be unfair to the freedom fries. After all, no agency of the federal government formally renamed the vegetable snack. "Freedom fries" were never seen outside the Capitol Hill cafeteria—whereas the "Gulf of America," one assumes, will soon be on every classroom wall in the nation. 

And then there is the sheer ludicrous bathos of it. Surely even Trump's ardent followers have to perceive this. He promised them a new "golden age" a couple days ago. Is anyone persuaded that renaming a body of water will bring its advent any closer? Can even they keep a straight face at all this? (I'm sure the Interior Department comms person writing the press release couldn't.)

Finally, there is simply the "ugly American" aspect to it. The sheer head-hanging disgrace that this is how we are presenting ourselves to the world—including to our closest allies and neighbors. 

In his Blood Meridian, the novelist Cormac McCarthy describes a group of desperadoes who enlist as mercenaries south of the border. Their Mexican hosts welcome them with a toast to George Washington, but the Americans are unable to reciprocate in kind, because they are "ignorant alike of diplomacy and any name at all from the pantheon of their sister republic."

It seems that the same could be said of our president and federal government today, to our infinite shame. And the worst part of all is that—they seem proud of their ignorance. They feel entitled to it. They display the invisible arrogance of the stupid yet mighty—though it is impossible to believe that, deprived of any better mental equipment than this, they will remain mighty for long. 

Indeed, would any thinking person remain confident in our nation's future, when they see how we treat our friends? What's so bizarre about Trump's antagonism toward Mexico (as toward Panama and Canada and Denmark/Greenland, for that matter) is that none of these countries is the least bit adversarial. To the contrary, they are prominent U.S. allies and trading partners. 

Trump's willingness to sabotage these relationships for his own short-term egotistical delight puts our nation on a glide-path to self-destruction. Who with any intelligence would still feel jingoistic and proud at this spectacle—the sight of the U.S. government stabbing in this unprovoked way at the dignity and rights of our southern neighbor—the allied nation of Mexico? 

I am reminded yet again of Emerson's words—which he wrote in response to another U.S. attack on our sister republic, the parallels with which Mexico's current president has not been slow to point out this week (before Polk's invasion, after all, was not much of the current United States known as "America Mexicana"? she recently asked.) Here's Emerson: 

But who is he that prates

Of the culture of mankind,

Of better arts and life?

Go, blindworm, go,

Behold the famous States

Harrying Mexico

With rifle and with knife!