Thursday, June 26, 2025

Trump and Names

Perhaps Americanos take President Trump a little too seriously. His verbal contortions don't seem to be quite statesman-like or even sensible at times.

An example is his changing the name of a large Atlantic bay from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. It doesn't seem to have caught on with the general population of either country or the world at large but.

Trump's grasp of world history is undetermined but he's missing something. The ayatollahs of Iran now control a piece of geography that was once one of the most powerful nations on earth. That was Persia, not called Iran until 1935. The locals like the name Iran better.

For 21 years, until his assassination in 465 BC, Xerxes I was the emperor of the  Achaemenid Empire, now known as Iran. In a 1880s fit of listing conformity the sleepy Midwestern city of Minneapolis needed a name beginning in X to fit into the names of streets like DuPont, Cofax and Humboldt, arranged alphabetically to make urban navigation easier. With few names beginning in X, Xerxes became the pick and remains so to this day. If there is life after death, perhaps Xerxes sits on a cloud and marvels that his name remains, thousands of years later, on a street on the other side of the world.

Rest assured that there is no Reagan Avenue in Tehran. So why hasn't the president ordered the name change of a street in Minneapolis to something more American? That may not be possible in a solidly Democratic neighborhood like the Athens of the Plains but it could well serve as another rallying point for him and his followers. And Xerxes was hardly an example of the  democratically-elected leader that inspires Minnesotans.

 

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