For years, Democrats and progressive institutions have supported renaming buildings, removing statues, changing traditional terminology, and redefining how society talks about sex and gender. These changes are usually defended as progress or as corrections to an outdated understanding of history.
Yet when Trump uses government authority to change a geographic name, many of the same people suddenly argue that traditional names must be respected.
Consider George Washington. Some people want plaques placed near his statues emphasizing that he owned slaves. That fact belongs in history books and museums, but it is not the reason his statues were erected. Americans traditionally honor Washington for leading the country through the Revolution and becoming its first president. A monument is not a complete biography. Singling out one negative fact changes its purpose from commemorating his accomplishments to judging him primarily by his greatest moral failing.
Perhaps Trump’s geographic changes are intended to create that juxtaposition. By making a conspicuous change of his own, he forces his opponents to defend historical continuity after years of treating names, monuments, and traditional language as things that can—and sometimes should—be changed.
The situations are not identical, but the underlying question is the same: Who gets to control our public language, symbols, and understanding of history?
If changing traditional symbols is acceptable when it advances progressive values, it cannot suddenly become an attack on history when a Republican does it. And if preserving history truly matters, that principle should apply regardless of which political party is attempting to change it.
The new names may or may not last. A future president could reverse them. But perhaps their permanence isn’t the real point. The point may be the contrast—and the double standard it exposes.
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