One of the things that Fascists have done in the past is use the naming, or renaming, of things to control the perceptions of the populace or the leader’s real or perceived enemies. Examples of this in recent history were when, in the 1950’s, President Nasser of Egypt declared that the name of what had previously been known as the “Persian Gulf” should be named the “Arabian Gulf” going forward. The purpose of this was to help lend credence to his notion of pan-Arab nationalism which was intended to unite the Arab people against the imperialist powers of primarily the British and the French of the time. Although this was later expanded to include the United States as they asserted more influence in the region later.
Hitler used renaming of geographical locations in a similar fashion in Germany in the 1930’s. On July 16, 1938, Hitler’s government renamed over 1,500 places in East Prussia alone. After conquering territories, the Nazis frequently renamed cities because they felt that the “foreign language names for places constitute a national threat and may lead to mistaken world opinion in regard to their nationality“. Such behavior was not uncommon among other autocratic regimes as it allowed the autocrat to help eliminate historical references to that city or region being in the control of either an enemy or former enemy.
Today, we see similar behavior playing out in a large scale under the neo-Fascist regime of Donald Trump. The most media-impactful example of this is the desire to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America“, or the proposed renaming of Greenland the comical “Red White and Blueland“. You see this in other places in the Trump regime such as the rolling back of name changes of US Military installations which had previously been named after enemy combatants in this US Civil War. Another example of this is Trump renaming a mountain in Alaska which had been renamed to Denali in recognition of the state government petitioning the federal government in as early as 1975.
In the US Military Installations, it is widely accepted that naming them after defeated traitors to the United States in the US Civil War was done to push back against the civil rights changes that were positively impacting the lives of African American citizens in the US in the 1960’s. In a similar move, the racist politicians and business leaders started putting up monuments to these same civil war losers as a way of intimidating the local black population. Given the highly racist nature of the current Republican party, epitomized in the person of Trump, it is not surprising that his supporters would cherish these shameful relics of America’s racist past.
One thing that Trump is skilled at is an instinctive ability to grab the media narrative and such absurdities, that have zero positive impact on the American populace and only serve to inflame hatred and bigotry, are controversial and drive clicks and eyeballs in the current profit-driven media ecosystem. In addition, Trump’s bullying of institutions with subtle threats of violence from his supporters have led large corporations to support this renaming campaign. Also, the fact that these large companies and media conglomerates are owned by America’s new billionaire oligarchs means that they will do whatever Trump asks on the altar of large tax cuts which only help them.