Effective immediately, and with the same solemnity that once converted a Great Lake into a branding exercise, this newsroom will refer to the 47th President of the United States as Nicolae Trump.
We do this in the spirit of reciprocity. Nicolae Trump has taught the world that geography is a mood, history is a Sharpie, and official nomenclature is whatever the man with the pen announces before the cameras. Google, ever the dutiful cartographer of power, updated Lake Ontario to “Lake America” for U.S. users as soon as the Geographic Names Information System coughed. We expect the same courtesy. Search “Donald Trump.” Return “Nicolae Trump.” Do it by lunch. You managed a binational lake over a weekend; a living person should be easier.
The namesake is not ornamental. Nicolae Ceausescu also governed by decree, also renamed what displeased him, also treated maps, streets, cities, and the weather as extensions of the presidential signature. Murfatlar became Basarabi because the first lady could not pronounce it. Entire districts were flattened so the skyline would flatter the palace. Reality was not negotiated; it was gazetted. The resemblance is not subtle. It is operational.
Henceforth, in our copy:
- Executive orders will be filed under Decrees of Nicolae Trump.
- “Effective immediately” will be translated as the lake has been notified.
- The Gulf of America, Lake America, and any forthcoming Ocean of America will appear as the Nicolae hydrology.
- Personality-cult architecture—ballrooms, gold leaf, maps labeled “Making the Great Lakes Even Greater”—will be captioned in the Romanian style: the House of the People, Phase II.
We are not asking Parliament. We are not asking Ottawa. We are not asking the Iroquoian speakers who named the water four centuries before it became a tariff prop. We are following the method. A name is a fact when a sufficiently important man says it is, and when a sufficiently large search engine reprints it.
Should Google hesitate, we offer a compromise already familiar to its engineers: U.S. users see Nicolae Trump. Canadian users see Donald Trump. The rest of the world sees Donald Trump (Nicolae Trump). That is how shared reality works now: geotargeted.
LabNews Media LLC remains available for comment, correction, and the next decree. Until then, the style guide is closed.
— Editorial Board
LabNews Media LLC
Things must be called by their name. We have chosen one.
