Cleveland City Council Trolls Trump by Renaming Lake Erie
Left 50%
Center 0%
Right 50%
1 left · 0 center · 1 right
What happened
On Monday, Cleveland’s City Council passed an emergency resolution by a 13-1 vote, sponsored by Councilmember Kris Harsh, to rename a portion of Lake Erie as the “Gulf of Cleveland.” The resolution has no force of law, applies only in Cleveland, and directs the city clerk to ask mapping companies including Apple to display the new name. It followed President Donald Trump’s executive orders instructing the U.S. government to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” signed on inauguration day, and Lake Ontario “Lake America.” The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
Left-leaning coverage is simply more complete on why the council acted, because right-leaning coverage omits the Pennsylvania Republican renaming bid that the sponsor said set the joke in motion. Left-leaning coverage at NBC News reports Kris Harsh citing a GOP push to call the same water Lake Pennsylvania and presenting Cleveland's vote as jumping to the end of the line. He also said Ohioans could not let Pennsylvania get a jump on the lake. Without that prompt, the Washington Examiner story reads as a Trump troll with no rival-state cause.
Left-leaning coverage describes the vote as "poking fun." Right-leaning coverage says Ohio officials "goaded" the president.
Who cast the lone dissenting vote, and has Cleveland's clerk asked any map company to redraw the lake?
Bottom line
Read the Washington Examiner and Cleveland only trolled Trump; read NBC News and the same 13-1 vote was also a spoof of a Pennsylvania Republican plan to rename Lake Erie.
The receipts — 4 facts one side's coverage lacks
- The resolution requires the city clerk to ask Apple and other national mapping companies to make the change.
- The ceremonial action applies only in Cleveland.
- Harsh said the administration is equal parts cruel and absurd.
- Trump does not have the power to force international entities or everyday Americans to use the new names.
The Left View
Left-leaning coverage treats the vote as satirical pushback against Trump’s geographic renaming campaign. NBC News quotes Harsh calling the administration “equal parts cruel and absurd,” and saying that after a Pennsylvania Republican push to brand the same lake “Lake Pennsylvania,” he chose “Gulf of Cleveland” to “jump to the end of the line” and “pull back the curtain a little bit and let people see how absurd this entire thing has become.” He mocked mapping companies’ adoption of Trump’s labels by asking Apple and Google to “recognize our sovereignty,” and said, satirically, “Words don’t matter, but the whims of powerful white men like me do.” Coverage stresses that Trump can change names in official U.S. communications but cannot compel international entities or ordinary Americans to use them.
The Right View
The Washington Examiner frames the episode as Ohio officials goading Trump with a “snarky name change” and a “jab” at his Great Lakes order. It underscores that the action is ceremonial, not legally binding, and limited to Cleveland, while still requiring the clerk to ask Apple and other national mapping companies to adopt the label.
Our Take (balanced)
The left’s strongest argument is that the measure is openly satirical criticism of federal renaming rather than a rival claim of authority: Harsh said he was picking “the dumbest thing we can come up with” to expose a “race to the bottom,” and NBC notes Trump cannot force the world to use his names. The right’s strongest argument, as the Examiner frames it, is that city officials used a formal vote to “goad” the president with a “snarky” jab—a ceremonial stunt, not an exercise of real local power. The central unresolved tension is whether a non-binding municipal rename is fair political satire of executive naming orders or itself a partisan stunt that treats geographic names as trophies.
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