Names have power, and naming things empowers the one doing the naming. It is an act of creation. Along the way, words work as legitimizers and often cast long shadows. Whoever names the names is the one controlling the landscape. It is easy, for instance, to add nuance and shading to words by adjusting a definition. The “final solution,” ("Endlösung der Judenfrage") as an example, became a euphemism for genocide. “Collateral damage” is a term often used to describe civilian causalities harmed by the ones doing the damage. “Terrorist,” in its broadest sense, is defined as violence against non-combatants for a political or religious cause (which would mean Trump’s attack on the Capitol on the 6 January 2020 was an act of terrorism). Of course, terrorists usually call themselves “freedom fighters” or “champions of justice.” Words are slippery, aren’t they? And the one who controls definitions is usually the one wielding power.
When someone slaps his or her name on things, it is an act of ownership, an extension of one’s influence. To the point, Trump is big on posting his name on buildings, wine bottles, golf courses, hotels, designer bags, casinos, parks, bitcoins, streets, hot dogs, beer bottles, vodka bottles, airplanes, board games, souvenirs, books, baseball caps, anything at all he claims. By executive order he has decreed that the name of Denali revert to Mt. McKinley, and the Gulf of Mexico be rebranded to the Gulf of America. He’s big on being the one who names things. As the chief name-maker, he wants to change the name of the Kennedy Arts Center to the Donald J. Trump Center for the Preforming Arts. In addition, he wants to rename the opera house the Melania Trump Opera House. He also wants to have his face carved onto the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota. His ego cannot be contained. Humility is not in his vocabulary. Some of his devotees have suggested changing Dulles Airport to the Donald J. Trump Airport. In keeping with that theme, I have renamed the putrescence (hydrogen sulfide) coming from a broken neighborhood sewer after Donald Trump, now named the “Donald Trump Stinker.” See what I did there? I just assumed the authority of being the one who names things.
Can there be any limit to Trump’s prideful reach, his bloated ego, and his narcissistic personality disorder? Sources close to the White House suggest Trump is thinking about replacing the Holy Ghost as part of the triune God, which may be only a small stretch of imagination. According to his own inflated assessment, he knows more about everything, more than anyone else in the world, everything includes finances, climate change, tv ratings, and technology. He gives himself an A+ before asking the interviewer, “Is there anything higher?” It is difficult for most of us to suffer the constant promotion of such a childish attention-seeker.
But there he is promoting himself daily. A forensic psychiatrist, who has studied the principles on which the assessment of current and future dangerousness in violent criminals is based, concludes:
‘Trump is now the most powerful head of state in the world, and one of the most impulsive, arrogant, ignorant, disorganised, chaotic, nihilistic, self-contradictory, self-important, and self-serving. He has his finger on the triggers of a thousand or more of the most powerful thermonuclear weapons in the world. That means he could kill more people in a few seconds than any dictator in past history has been able to kill during his entire years in power.’
[i]Field R. Books: The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President: Assessing Dangerousness. Br J Gen Pract. 2018 Oct;68(675):490. doi: 10.3399/bjgp18X699269. PMID: 30262624; PMCID: PMC6145972.