Today’s Republicans often portray themselves as free-speech champions, fighting against the wokesters and the cancelers. Sometimes they are. But rare is the person who is consistent on free speech—who wants it for himself and others, too.
Let’s talk Gulf politics, and I do not mean the Middle East.
On the first day of his second term, President Trump signed an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” This was an early sign of the unblushing Caesarism that would characterize this second term.
(Mobutu renamed his country “Zaire.” Trujillo renamed his country’s capital after himself. The renaming business makes an interesting study—all too.)
The Associated Press, being a media organization in a free country, decided that it would keep “Gulf of Mexico” in its stylebook. After all, this body of water had been called the “Gulf of Mexico” for 500 years. The White House then banned the AP from presidential press conferences and the like.
There is an old French term for what the AP had committed: lèse-majesté. The AP had offended the sovereign.
Fast-forward to a few days ago. Did you see this story?
Alabama’s Gulf of America Act took effect last week, making it state policy to use President Trump’s preferred term for the Gulf of Mexico.
House Bill 2 requires “all state and local entities and their employees” to “refer to the body of water that borders the coast of Alabama as the ‘Gulf of America,’” and to reflect this “terminology in all newly created maps, documents, educational materials, websites, official communications, and other resources.”
There’s more. And if you feel a chill, you are not alone:
The page-and-a-half-long law has one exception for the public schools, colleges, and universities it impacts: They can use “Gulf of Mexico” “for historical purposes” during instruction. Otherwise, the law doesn’t exempt Alabama faculty or other university employees, including reporters, from its restriction on what they can call this body of water.
You know what I think a genuine, red-blooded American would say? “No.” In fact, “Hell, no.”
***
On the subject of renaming, I wonder whether you saw this, from our president yesterday:
Can anyone defend this, anyone at all? “THE ENEMY!”? Is this the way an American president ought to talk about his fellow citizens who don’t immediately conform to his linguistic decrees?
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On Wednesday, Trump said, “I view the presidency as a very sacred position.” The Founders did not. It is a civil position. And the president, as a citizen, is not above the law. What was the American revolution about, at its heart? What separated us from the Old World and its ways and notions?
I believe that modern Americans, too many of them, have forgotten who we are.
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Kevin D. Williamson had a nifty, offbeat essay on King Henry VIII and his court, making some comparisons to TrumpWorld. One of his points about Henry was this: “Henry was all about Henry.” Kevin did not put it that way; I am paraphrasing him in modern parlance.
I thought of something that a reader said last month. Allow me to “set the scene.”
Trump has a habit of running down America, and doing so on foreign soil. On a recent trip to Ireland, he claimed that the 2020 election had been “rigged” (of course). I commented:
For years, our dictatorial enemies—Russia, China, et al.—have said that our democracy is a sham. What need is there of Kremlin propaganda, for example, when the U.S. president himself says the same things?
A reader, a tweeter, named Andrew—no last name given—replied as follows:
Nothing like a nationalist who runs down his own country.
But he was never a nationalist, really. Just a him-ist. The country is great when, and only when, it serves him personally.
Just a him-ist. That is really well put.
***
One more word on Henry VIII—not from me, or Kevin, but from David Pryce-Jones, the late British historian and man of letters: “He was as close as this country has ever come to a proper tyrant.” (DPJ said this to me when, somehow, we had gotten on that atrocious king.)
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Do you know what a “groyper” is? If you don’t, lucky you. It is a young American who is into far-right politics. Now, I have been called “far-right” throughout my life because I admire Goldwater, Buckley, and Reagan. This is not groyperism. Groyperism is—you know, Hitler and the boys.
With regularity, there are news stories exposing congressional staffers and the like as groypers. There was one the other day, leading David French to say:
This is happening so much that it’s almost dog-bites-man at this point in the Right’s devolution. It’s the same story again and again and again and again.
I replied,
Yes. Many of us watched the groyperization of young people—a disquieting percentage of them. It’s one of the things that gave me second thoughts about “American exceptionalism.” Our degree of immunity to the ills of the Old World.
I have an idea for grad students in political science who are casting about for a topic. See what you think:
In Cold War years, there were “mainstream liberals” who treated left-wing extremists as “liberals in a hurry.” They had a sneaking admiration for the extremists. They might even have been a little shamed by them. “Why am I not doing as much? Why am I not as bold?” There were “coat-and-tie liberals,” as Bob Tyrell said, who put a patina on what the extremists, the commies, were doing.
After 2016, something similar happened on the right. “Mainstream conservatives” convinced themselves that the extremists were “moving the needle.” They were maybe a little rough around the edges, but their hearts were in the right place. The “mainstreamers” even thrilled to these guys, got a kick out of them—these beer-hall types who were “saying the quiet parts out loud,” etc.
Anyway, an idea—an idea for a topic.
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There will be a presidential election in France next year—and it may come down to Jean-Luc Mélenchon vs. Marine Le Pen. Left vs. Right. Now, by “Left vs. Right,” I don’t mean, say, Reagan vs. Mondale or, in the subsequent election, Bush vs. Dukakis. I mean—the real Left and Right.
Between Mélenchon and Le Pen, who is more anti-NATO? Who is more anti-Ukraine? Who is sweeter on Putin?
An item from a couple of weeks ago:
Jean-Luc Mélenchon blames Ukraine’s “deep strikes” on Russian territory for intensifying the Russian threat in Europe.
Sure.
In American politics, we often speak of the “horseshoe”: Left and Right bending toward each other. In France, the horseshoe seems more like a circle …
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My friends, this has not been a very “up” or hope-filled column. My apologies. Maybe I can sign off with some flowers, from Tucson, Arizona, from where I am writing you? My vast horticultural knowledge tells me that they’re “orange-red jobbies.” Anyway, they’re appealing to me, and I bet you will find them the same.
Thanks for writing, thanks for subscribing, thanks for corresponding—thank you.
Lantana. I have one by my driveway with the same colors. They also come in other colors.
I was reading a WSJ article yesterday that kept mentioning "far-right Marine LePen" while discussing the massive increases in pension spending she proposes.
Left and right mean nothing but a vibe and a lazy shorthand now.
We call them Mexican Bird of Paradise. A common beauty in the southwest