“If you think about it, we have a gulf, and we have a lake. Now all we need is an ocean.”

— President Trump, declaring Lake Ontario “Lake America” via executive order

The year is 2027. Gas costs $83 a gallon, and lettuce is at war with us. However, every location on every map is now labeled america. And everything else is named Trump. Sometimes for fun we hike from the Trump Airport to the other Trump Airport to the other Trump Airport. (The few remaining air-traffic controllers have taken up heavy smoking from all the stress and confusion.) We do not fly; it is too expensive, and the planes don’t know where they’re going.

The good news is that we are still a member of the America America America America (formerly the North Atlantic Treaty Organization). The renaming clinched it!

Maps are functionally useless. What is the deepest point in the American Ocean? Impossible to know. There are two American Oceans. America stretches from one to the other, below the Lakes America (mnemonic acronym: AAAAA). The bottom of the globe is America. The top of the globe is America too. We’ve decided to keep it round, for now.

Every lake is Lake America, and every gulf is the Gulf of America. Our battleships (Trump-class, and all named for former Confederates) are very confused all the time and have been at sea for months; the crews on them are sick and undersupplied. (We would call this a national disgrace but disgrace is now “America” too.)

Every kind of cheese is American cheese, even the kind with holes. If tariffs hadn’t made maple syrup (from our northern neighbor, America) so expensive, we would make American waffles. All actors are named America, not just Ferrara. Every kind of bulldog is an American bulldog. There are no Canada geese any more (not due to renaming, due to the Incident). We eat American muffins and Trump salad (which used to be Caesar). Sometimes for breakfast we eat an American! (Formerly a Danish. We hope.) We go to American baths. (There is no water in them due to the evaporation of Lake America. No, not that Lake America. The other Lake America.)

American kids don’t get measles any longer. They get America!

All penguins are now named Donald Trump by law, except the small, disgraceful ones.

Every band is America, except for Kid Rock, who received a special exception.

Texas toast is still allowed, but Georgia peaches are on thin ice, contingent on electoral outcomes.

Inflation? Don’t ask! We have no idea! Numbers are now the word Americaprinted in a tiny font! This makes inflation less noticeable, because no words have any meaning or value anymore! If someone had a particle of backbone, we could at least have legible maps! I’m sorry: if someone had a particle of Trump (we are renaming the body parts too).

American students are now the best at geography because there is only one possible answer to every question. They are also constantly lost. But that’s only in the real world, which is no longer relevant. On the map, everything is America (fine)!

Sometimes we want to just go jump into Lake America to get away from it all. No, not that one. The other one.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alexandra Petri

Alexandra Petri is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

 

Call me naive if you wish, but I like to believe that character is destiny and virtue matters. Ethical beliefs and actions come from personal character and personal virtue. I believe we need principles to live by. I believe in facts and evidence. I believe in the rule of law, not laws by the dictates of fascists. I believe in freedom of religion, not propagandistic, nationalistic religion. If I am naive so be it.

On AI

 

All kinds of contradictory claims are being made about AI. The truth is, from what little I've picked up, is that nobody knows for sure what it's leading to. Isn't this true historically of all new technology?

Still Believe?

 Still believe the victory that our war for independence in 1781 was a result of divine providence? And after 250 yrs we end up with Donald John Trump? You'd better rethink things.

Jamelle Bouie in the NY Times

 

Consider the president’s trade war with Canada, one of our closest economic partners. There is no logical reason for this conflict, and it does not serve the interest of people on either side of the border. It is principally a function of Trump’s boundless ego and his monomaniacal obsession with tariffs as the path to national prosperity.

For more than a year, Trump has tried to bully Canada into economic submission with tariffs, threats of tariffs and attacks on Canadian sovereignty, with regular and routine quips about making Canada the 51st state. This carried over into recent trade negotiations, in which the administration pressured Canada both to relinquish control over important aspects of its own trade policy and end support for industries harmed by American tariffs. When Canadian negotiators refused to bend to those demands and talks collapsed, Trump lashed out.

“Canada has been ripping off the United States of America for years,” he raged on Truth Social. “On Trade, and in other ways, also, they are among the worst Nations in the World to deal with. They feel entitled, and yet, WE DON’T NEED CANADA, THEY NEED US!” To punish Canada for refusing him, Trump announced new 50 percent tariffs on “all Cars, Trucks, both large and small, Automotive Parts, and steel.”

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And so here we are, locked in a destructive trade war with a neighbor that was once an ally and friend, but that now sees the United States as dangerous and untrustworthy.

The fatal flaw of monarchy is that the strength of the state depends on the personality and capacities of the monarch. It subjects an entire people to the pathologies of that one man or woman: to his dysfunctions, his maladaptations and his twisted sense of self.

Trump was democratically elected. But both his unilateral exercise of authority and his monarchical aspirations are reminders, at the very least, that putting this much power in the hands of one man — in the hands of one ego — is a reliable way to produce disaster.