With help from Merriam-Webster:
gulf
noun
1. A part of the ocean or sea extending into the land
The U.S. has a few gulfs, among them the Gulf of Alaska, the Gulf of Maine, and the Gulf of Mexico. California has a couple more gulfs. The country’s also got plenty of sounds and bays and inlets (and even ten fjords), but only a few gulfs. If you look them up in a reference book (if you’re old and like books) or a reputable website, you’ll find pictures like the one above.
However, if you look them up on Google Maps, a formerly reputable website, you will find that the Gulf of Mexico has a different name. The Goniff in Chief* had a big idea, and he was so excited about this Big Idea that he made a proclamation, like a little King. And he decided there should be a day dedicated to his Big Idea.
Why did Google go along with this? According to the BBC, “Google said it was making the change as part of ‘a longstanding practice’ of following name changes when updated by official government sources.” A cynic might suggest that the real answer lies in the tech CEO tableau below, taken at the inauguration.
Since the Gulf is just a big giant stretch of water and has no government to object, apparently our President, if that’s what you want to call him and who am I to stop you, can just call it whatever he wants and that somehow has the force of law, or enough force to bring a Master of the Tech Universe (shout out to Tom Wolfe) to heel. Greenland, on the other hand, has, unfortunately from only this one point of view, a government and even people living there, so if we want it renamed, we have to buy it. But how? As of yesterday, there’s a bill for that:
Thanks, Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R-GA). What do you get an authoritarian with the mind of a child who’s already got everything? Asked and answered.
2. A deep chasm: ABYSS
This hemispheric mislabeling/conquest misheggos is only one small part of the abyss that is opening up before us as a result of the country’s losing its misinformed, social media-misshapen mind and electing the GIC. Impending financial crash? Check. Full-blown constitutional crisis? Check. Crippling of scientific research, social services, and higher education? Check. Explicit bigotry enshrined in a flurry of deadly policies? Check. Loss of faith in our national project, always fallen short of but never just thrown out and lit on fire? Check. Will we fall into this abyss, this chasm, this Gulf of America, where we rename things because we want to Own Everything and Don’t Care About Other People? Can we stop it now? When the Vice President says judges can’t tell members of the executive or legislative branch what to do or more importantly what not to do, what is there to do?
3. WHIRLPOOL
Odysseus, just trying to get home to see his faithful dog, had to sail between Scylla and Charybdis, the man-eating monster and the ship-swallowing whirlpool. The rotating waters of the Strait of Messina, off Sicily, are only dangerous to small craft, a still-reputable website tells me, but that’s what experts think inspired the Charybdis of Greek mythology.
To be between Scylla and Charybdis, a saying still known by the kind of people who consult reference books, is to be between a rock and a hard place. I don’t know if that’s the right saying to capture where we are right now. What are our two impossible choices? Do we have any choices? Wouldn’t it be nice to have some?
4. A wide gap; the gulf between generations
The Gulf of America that bothers many of us the most about what’s happened in the last three weeks–it’s only been three weeks!– is the widening gaps being driven between already divided Americans. The greatest gap is one that’s not so much between the Haves and the Have Nots but between the Have Everythings and Everyone Else, a divide that “gap” and “abyss” and “chasm” don’t begin to capture. There’s the gaps between the right kind of Christian and everyone else, between white and Black, straight and not, right and left, American and foreigner, but all of these gaps, these gulfs, as significant as they are, aren’t just preexisting conditions worsened by people in power who don’t care. They are the gaps exploited by the Have Everythings so they can have more: more money, more power, more control to remake the country as they want it. They’re not just widening our gulfs; they’re using them, feeding off of them.
Renaming the Gulf of Mexico in itself is just silly. But it stands for the ascendancy of jingoistic bullying, of xenophobic hatred, of disregard and even disdain for following the rules that animates our current rulers. It’s what swept them into power and it’s what so many of your neighbors share with them, if you’re being honest. There’s your Gulf of America. You’re standing in it.
*goniff, as defined in Leo Rosten’s The Joys of Yiddish. Number 6 does not apply, as no proof of him loving fun is in evidence
Samuel Cohen 