Trump names himself ‘Greatest President’ and ‘Lake America’ joins his growing brand empire
The TOI correspondent from Washington : In what was widely seen as part trolling and part wishful fantasy, MAGA supremo Donald Trump on Friday declared himself in a social media post to be the “greatest” president in US history, ahead of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and others (who in his view were merely great).
Even MAGA principals are starting to wince at the 80-year old President’s increasingly surreal social media posts.
Several commentators called his post “delusional” and “pathetic” and attention-seeking, pointing out that in reality a poll of historians and scholars ranked Trump dead last and the worse president in history. The nomenclatural scrap over Lake Ontario though provides a delicious historical irony: the name predates both the United States and Canada, deriving, according to Canadian PM Mark Carney, from the Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, means “the lake is beautiful, the lake is big.” Critics – some of whom believe his unvetted aide Natalie Harp is responsible for the torrent of rubbish – are wondering meanwhile if he can, or should, last out his term, often invoking the 25th amendment that allows replacing an incapacitated president. Trump’s fascination with renaming things is part of a larger obsession with names and ratings, brands and branding. To the real-estate developer turned president, apparently nothing is quite complete until it has his or his chosen nameplate on it. Buildings need his name, as do golf courses, universities, airports, steaks, and wines.