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Public school officials in Michigan have pounced on recent layoffs at the U.S. Department of Education, but these changes will have less impact than the high-flown rhetoric suggests. Lawmakers should tune out that shouting when they decide how to spend state education funds.

Public school officials in Michigan have pounced on recent layoffs at the U.S. Department of Education, but these changes will have less impact than the high-flown rhetoric suggests.
Lawmakers should tune out that shouting when they decide how to spend state education funds.

The federal department’s workforce was reduced in March from 4,133 to 2,183 employees, according to a U.S. Department of Education press release. The staff reduction “reflects the Department of Education’s commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon stated.

But the workforce reduction does not reduce the more than $2 billion in funding for Michigan programs the federal department administers by law. Nor does it mean the department will be eliminated. It would require an act of Congress to make budgetary changes or close the Department of Education, which was created by statute during the Carter administration.

In the press release, the federal department confirmed its intent to administer its programs with a leaner workforce. “The Department of Education will continue to deliver on all statutory programs that fall under the agency’s purview, including formula funding, student loans, Pell Grants, funding for special needs students, and competitive grantmaking.”

Responsibility for administering funds for certain programs could be shifted to other federal departments. Some sources suggest Title I and special education, which receive the bulk of federal tax dollars earmarked for K-12 education, could be transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services or the Department of Justice.

Michigan school districts should be able to operate as usual no matter what happens at the federal level. They receive about 10% of their funding from the federal government, and amending this amount in the budget would require federal legislation.

This does not mean we should expect the ongoing provision of federal dollars to produce higher student achievement in the Great Lakes State. The federal department’s total spending on education more than doubled from 2011 to 2021. Yet Michigan’s performance in reading and math continues to suffer — students have yet to return to pre-lockdown proficiency levels in these critical subjects.

Even so, Michigan, not the federal government, bears the responsibility for improving student outcomes in our state’s school districts.

About 90% of district funding comes from state and local taxpayers, and state spending has increased to record levels. When adjusted for inflation, education spending has increased by 30% since 2013. But Michigan still trails most states in reading and math proficiency.

School officials and lawmakers ought to be more concerned about the performance trajectory of Michigan students and how state funds are being used to improve it. Michigan legislators must ensure taxpayer dollars are allocated to policies that target student achievement, and district leaders must ensure they’re implemented effectively.

State lawmakers recently passed legislation that targets literacy, and bills that address teacher recruitment and other areas of need have been introduced. But Michigan must do more to recover the significant learning losses incurred during the COVID lockdowns. A funding mechanism that gives K-12 students access to better educational options when their current school doesn’t make the grade would be a big step in the right direction. More than 30 states have adopted programs like tax credits and education savings accounts that do just that.

Changes to the federal education department will have little impact on Michigan’s schools. How lawmakers decide to spend state tax dollars to improve student outcomes will have a much greater impact. Efficient spending on K-12 programs that give students more educational opportunities would make the biggest difference.

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Dr. Molly Macek is the director of education policy for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Heads of state are the symbolic leader of a country. Some of them, like King Charles III of the United Kingdom, carry out largely ceremonial roles these days.

(THE CONVERSATION) — Heads of state are the symbolic leader of a country. Some of them, like King Charles III of the United Kingdom, carry out largely ceremonial roles these days.

Others, like Saudi Arabian King Salman, are absolute monarchs and involved in governing the country’s day-to-day activities and policies. It also means that the Saudi monarch gets to do whatever he wants without much consequence from others.

In the United States, the president is both the head of state and head of government. The head of government works with legislators and meets with other world leaders to negotiate agreements and navigate conflicts, among other responsibilities.

Some presidents, like Jimmy Carter, got so bogged down in the specifics that the nighttime comedy show “Saturday Night Live” made fun of it in 1977. “SNL” spoofed Carter responding in extreme, mundane detail to a question about fixing a post office’s letter sorting machines.

As a political scientist who studies American presidents, I see that President Donald Trump loves the power and prestige that comes with being head of state, but does not seem to particularly enjoy the responsibility of being head of government.

Trump rarely talks about the often-tedious process of governing, and instead acts with governance by decree by signing a flurry of executive orders to avoid working with other parts of the government. He has also likened himself to a king, writing on Feb. 19, 2025, “Long Live the King!”

As much as Trump loves hosting sports teams and talking about paving over the White House’s rose garden in a remodeling project, he seems to begrudgingly accept the role of head of government.

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‘You have to be thankful’

Trump revels in social events where he is heralded as the most important person in the room. On Feb. 9, 2025, Trump became the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl. A week later, he attended the Daytona 500 at Daytona Beach, Florida, where his limousine led drivers in completing a ceremonial lap.

Trump’s preference for serving as head of state and not head of government was on full display during his now infamous Feb. 28, 2025, White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

In the televised Oval Office meeting, Trump repeatedly told Zelenskyy, “You have to be thankful.”

Trump was demanding deference from Zelenskyy to show his inferior and submissive position as a recipient of U.S. aid and military support. These are mannerisms of absolute kings, not elected officials.

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Governing through executive orders

The beginning of Trump’s second term in office has been filled with announcements of changes – mostly through executive actions. The Trump administration has ordered the Pentagon to stop cyber operations against Russia and fired hundreds of employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The administration has also closed the Social Security Administration’s civil rights office and, among many other things, named the president chair of the Kennedy Center, a performance arts venue in Washington.

Trump has enacted policy changes almost exclusively through executive orders, instead of working with Congress on legislation.

Executive orders do not have to be negotiated with the legislative branch and can be written by a small team of advisers and approved by presidents. Within the first six weeks, Trump has signed more than 90 executive orders. By comparison, former President Joe Biden signed 162 executive orders during his four years in office.

Many of Trump’s executive orders are being challenged in court, and some have been found to likely not be constitutional.

More importantly, Trump’s successor can turn executive orders into confetti in an instant, simply with a signature. Trump himself has signed at least two executive orders that rescind over 60 previous executive orders, mostly signed by Biden.

The fact that Trump has removed almost all of Biden’s executive orders highlights how the orders can create change for a moment, or a few years. But when it comes to long-term policy change, congressional action is needed.

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Trump gets bored

Early in Trump’s first term in 2017, the administration planned themed weeks called “Made in America” and “American Heroes,” for example, to emphasize changes it intended to pursue.

Trump’s staff launched, stopped and then relaunched a themed infrastructure week seven times in 2019. This happened after Trump repeatedly derailed infrastructure events to focus on a more interesting event or topic, ranging from defending his comments that seemed to suggest support for white supremacists to discussing the reboot of Roseanne Barr’s sitcom.

In his second term, Trump has farmed out many head of government tasks to other people, notably billionaire Elon Musk, who is leading the new so-called Department of Government Efficiency. By mid-February 2025, Trump gave Musk, who holds the title of special government employee, oversight for hiring decisions at every governmental agency.

But as DOGE has initiated widespread cuts at different government agencies and offices in an effort to trim government waste, Musk has reportedly clashed with Trump’s cabinet members. This includes Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as well as other independent agencies funded by Congress.

Government agencies, funding recipients and others are pushing back against the cuts and at times are succeeding in getting court rulings that halt the dismissal of government workers, or reinstate other workers at their jobs. Trump also seems to have abdicated most responsibility of bureaucracy to others by allowing Musk’s team unprecedented access to sensitive government programs and documents that include people’s personal information.

Absolute kings, queens, emperors and dictators are heads of state who demand obedience because they hold the nation in their grip.

Presidents from elected democracies may, as in the case of the U.S., have a ceremonial aspect to the job, but it is only a part of it. The people democratically elect American presidents to serve everyone and provide the best government possible.

Away from the grueling land battles and devastating airstrikes, the Ukraine war has from its outset had a naval element. Soon after the February 2022 invasion, Russia imposed a de facto naval blockade on Ukraine, only to see its fleet stunningly defeated during a contest for control of the Black Sea.

(THE CONVERSATION) — Away from the grueling land battles and devastating airstrikes, the Ukraine war has from its outset had a naval element. Soon after the February 2022 invasion, Russia imposed a de facto naval blockade on Ukraine, only to see its fleet stunningly defeated during a contest for control of the Black Sea.

But that war on the waves looks like it could be ending.

Under the terms of a deal announced on March 25, 2025, by the U.S. and agreed upon in Saudi Arabia, both sides of the conflict committed to ensuring “safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea,” according to a White House statement.

The naval aspect of the Ukraine war has gotten less attention than events on land and in the skies. But it is, I believe, a vital aspect with potentially far-reaching consequences.

Not only have Russia’s Black Sea losses constrained Moscow’s ability to project power across the globe through naval means, it has also resulted in Russia’s growing cooperation with China, where Moscow is emerging as a junior party to Beijing on the high seas.

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Battle over the Black Sea

The tradition of geopolitical theory has tended to paint an oversimplification of global politics. Theories harkening back to the late 19th century categorized countries as either land powers or maritime powers.

Thinkers such as the British geopolitician Sir Halford Mackinder or the U.S. theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan characterized maritime powers as countries that possessed traits of democratic liberalism and free trade. In contrast, land powers were often portrayed as despotic and militaristic.

While such generalizations have historically been used to demonize enemies, there is still a contrived tendency to divide the world into land and sea powers. An accompanying view that naval and army warfare is somewhat separate has continued.

And this division gives us a false impression of Russia’s progress in the war with Ukraine. While Moscow has certainly seen some successes on land and in the air, that should not draw attention away from Russia’s stunning defeat in the Black Sea that has seen Russia have to retreat from the Ukrainian shoreline and keep its ships far away from the battlefront.

As I describe in my recent book, “Near and Far Waters: The Geopolitics of Seapower,” maritime countries have two concerns: They must attempt to control the parts of the sea relatively close to their coastlines, or their “near waters”; meanwhile, those with the ability and desire to do so try to project power and influence into “far waters” across oceans, which are the near waters of other countries.

The Black Sea is a tightly enclosed and relatively small sea comprising the near waters of the countries that surround it: Turkey to the south, Bulgaria and Romania to the west, Georgia to the east, and Ukraine and Russia to the north.

Control of the Black Sea’s near waters has been contested throughout the centuries and has played a role in the current Russian-Ukraine war.

Russia’s seizure of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 allowed it to control the naval port of Sevastopol. What were near waters of Ukraine became de facto near waters for Russia.

Controlling these near waters allowed Russia to disrupt Ukraine’s trade, especially the export of grain to African far waters.

But Russia’s actions were thwarted through the collaboration of Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey to allow passage of cargo ships through their near waters, then through the Bosporus into the Mediterranean Sea.

Ukraine’s use of these other countries’ near waters allowed it to export between 5.2 million and 5.8 million tons of grain per month in the first quarter of 2024. To be sure, this was a decline from Ukraine’s exports of about 6.5 million tons per month prior to the war, which then dropped to just 2 million tons in the summer of 2023 because of Russian attacks and threats. Prior to the announcement of the ceasefire, the Foreign Agricultural Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture had forecasted a decline in Ukrainian grain exports for 2025.

But efforts to constrain Russia’s control of Ukraine’s near waters in the Black Sea, and Russia’s unwillingness to face the consequences of attacking ships in NATO countries’ near waters, meant Ukraine was still able to access far waters for economic gain and keep the Ukrainian economy afloat.

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For Putin, that sinking feeling

Alongside being thwarted in its ability to disrupt Ukrainian exports, Russia has also come under direct naval attack from Ukraine. Since February 2022, using unmanned attack drones, Ukraine has successfully sunk or damaged Russian ships and whittled away at Russia’s Black sea fleet, sinking about 15 of its prewar fleet of about 36 warships and damaging many others.

Russia has been forced to limit its use of Sevastopol and station its ships in the eastern part of the Black Sea. It cannot effectively function in the near waters it gained through the seizure of Crimea.

Russia’s naval setbacks against Ukraine are only the latest in its historical difficulties in projecting sea power and its resulting tendency to mainly focus on the defense of near waters.
In 1905, Russia was shocked by a dramatic naval loss to Japan. Yet even in cases where it was not outright defeated, Russian sea power has been continually constrained historically. In World War I, Russia cooperated with the British Royal Navy to limit German merchant activity in the Baltic Sea and Turkish trade and military reach in the Black Sea.

In World War II, Russia relied on material support from the Allies and was largely blockaded within its Baltic Sea and Black Sea ports. Many ships were brought close to home or stripped of their guns as artillery or offshore support for the territorial struggle with Germany.

During the Cold War, meanwhile, though the Soviet Union built fast-moving missile boats and some aircraft carriers, its reach into far waters relied on submarines. The main purpose of the Soviet Mediterranean fleet was to prevent NATO penetration into the Black Sea.

And now, Russia has lost control of the Black Sea. It cannot operate in these once secure near waters. These losses reduce its ability to project naval power from the Black Sea and into the Mediterranean Sea.

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Ceding captaincy to China

Faced with a glaring loss in its backyard and put in a weak position in its near waters, Russia as a result can project power to far waters only through cooperation with a China that is itself investing heavily in a far-water naval capacity.

Joint naval exercises in the South China Sea in July 2024 are evidence of this cooperation. Wang Guangzheng of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s Southern Theater said of the drill that “the China-Russia joint patrol has promoted the deepening and practical cooperation between the two in multiple directions and fields.” And looking forward, he claimed the exercise “effectively enhanced the ability to the two sides to jointly respond to maritime security threats.”

This cooperation makes sense in purely military terms for Russia, a mutually beneficial project of sea power projection. But it is largely to China’s benefit.

Russia can help China’s defense of its northern near waters and secure access to far waters through the Arctic Ocean – an increasingly important arena as global climate change reduces the hindrance posed by sea ice. But Russia remains very much the junior partner.

Moscow’s strategic interests will be supported only if they match Chinese interests. More to the point, sea power is about power projection for economic gain. China will likely use Russia to help protect its ongoing economic reach into African, Pacific, European and South American far waters. But it is unlikely to jeopardize these interests for Russian goals.

To be sure, Russia has far-water economic interests, especially in the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa. And securing Russian interests in Africa complements China’s growing naval presence in the Indian Ocean to secure its own, and greater, global economic interests. But cooperation will still be at China’s behest.

For much of the Ukraine war, Russia has been bottled up in its Black Sea near waters, with the only avenue for projecting its naval power coming through access to Africa and Indian Ocean far waters – and only then as a junior partner with China, which dictates the terms and conditions.

A maritime deal with Ukraine now, even if it holds, will not compensate for Russia’s ongoing inability to project power across the oceans on its own.

The United States is no longer a democracy.

(THE CONVERSATION) — The United States is no longer a democracy.

At least, that’s the verdict of one nonprofit, the Center for Systemic Peace, which measures regime qualities of countries worldwide based on the competitiveness and integrity of their elections, limits to executive authority and other factors.

“The USA is no longer considered a democracy and lies at the cusp of autocracy,” the group’s 2025 report read.

It calls Donald Trump’s second inauguration following a raft of criminal indictments and convictions, combined with the U.S. Supreme Court’s July 2024 grant­ing of sweeping presidential immunity, a “presidential coup.”

Generally, only scholars pay attention to this kind of technical index. This year, however, many people are calling out the erosion of U.S. democracy.

Political scientists like myself can see that in the guise of government “efficiency,” the Trump administration is sabotaging the rule of law to such an extent that authoritarianism is taking hold in America.

How long might this situation last?

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US no longer a democracy?

The term “political regime” refers to either the person or people who hold power, or to a classification of government, including in a democracy.

Since the mid-1960s, when the U.S. expanded voting rights to include its Black citizens, historians and political scientists have generally classified the U.S. as having a democratic regime. That means the government holds free and fair elections, embraces universal voting rights, protects civil liberties and obeys the law.

All of these areas have significantly degraded in the U.S. over the last few decades due to partisan polarization and political extremism. Now, the rule of law is under attack, too.

Trump’s unprecedented use of nearly 100 executive orders in the first two months of his presidency aims to enact a vast policy agenda by decree. For comparison, President Joe Biden issued 162 executive orders over four years.

This is not what the founders had in mind: Congress is the constitutional route for policy-making. Skirting it threatens democracy, as do the issues Trump’s orders address. From attempting to deny citizenship through birthright to abolishing the U.S. Department of Education, Trump is attacking both the U.S. Constitution and Congress. His administration has even defied judges who order it to stop.

All of this challenges the rule of law – that is, the idea that everyone, including those in power, must follow the same laws.

When things get this bad, can a country recover?

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Autocrats can be beaten

Based on my research, the short answer is yes – eventually.

When a political party that does not honor democratic institutions or heed critical democratic norms takes power, political scientists expect the government to shift toward autocratic rule. That means restricting civil liberties,
quashing dissent and undermining the rule of law.

This is happening right now in the U.S.

The Trump administration is challenging broadcasters for their election coverage and banning speech that does not conform to its gender ideology. It’s flagrantly violating the Constitution. And it’s eliminating federal funding for universities and research centers that oppose its actions.

However, as long as a country has a robust opposition and elections that offer real opportunities for alternative parties to win office, the regime shift is not necessarily permanent.

Take Brazil, for example.

Its 2022 election ousted President Jair Bolsonaro, leader of an autocratic regime that had attacked the Brazilian media, judiciary and legislature. Bolsonaro claimed his loss to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was fraudulent, and in January 2023 his supporters attacked the nation’s capital. Since then, Bolsonaro has been charged with plotting a coup and barred from seeking office until 2030.

Brazilian voters and the courts stemmed the country’s autocratic slide and returned it to a democratic regime.

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Polarization swings the pendulum

Today the American public is deeply divided and dissatisfied with how U.S. democracy works. This polarization translates into presidential elections that are narrowly won.

According to the American Presidency Project at the University of California Santa Barbara, which measures presidential margins of victory by subtracting the electoral vote percentage from the popular vote percentage for each election, the average margin of victory in presidential elections between 1932 and 2000 was 25 points. Since 2000, it has been 7.8 points.

Moreover, since 1948, every time the White House changed hands after an election, it flipped parties as well, with one exception in 1988. Political scientists refer to this back-and-forth as “thermostatic shifting.” In other words, the electorate regularly sours on the status quo and aims to adjust the thermostat to another temperature – or political party.

When a party that more strongly favors democratic principles takes power, the U.S. more firmly adheres to democratic institutions and norms. This was essentially Biden’s winning pitch to voters in 2020.

Trump’s return to the White House despite two impeachments and a criminal conviction on 34 felony charges marked another pendulum swing – this time, back in the direction of authoritarianism.

The U.S. political pendulum has been swinging back and forth like this since at least 2016, with Trump’s first win. I expect the oscillation to continue.

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A kind of equilibrium

The risk, of course, is that a ruling authoritarian-leaning party abuses its power to ensure that the opposition can never again win. This has happened in recent decades in Hungary, Turkey and Venezuela, to name a few.

There are good reasons to believe that a permanent slide into autocracy is harder in the U.S. than in those countries.

The U.S. has a robust and wealthy network of civil society organizations, which are well versed in exercising their civil liberties. Its decentralized federalist structure is harder for any one person or party to seize. U.S. elections for example, are run by state and local governments, not the federal government. This makes its election systems more resilient than more centralized election systems.

At the moment, I see no reason to fear that the U.S. will fail to hold free and fair elections in 2026 or 2028.

For the time being, then, the U.S. is in what I call a “pendular equilibrium.” Parties trade majority control as voters react to extremism, shifting the regime from more autocratic to more democratic depending on who is in power.

The effect is a stable outcome of sorts – not a static stability but a dynamic stability. Despite the day-to-day chaos, there is balance over time in the predictable shift back and forth.

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When the pendulum stops swinging

Until, that is, some other force comes along to disrupt the pattern.

This might be a force more toward fascism that restricts elections to the point of futility, as in Venezuela and Russia. Or the equilibrium could be thrown off by a democratic resurgence, in the model of Brazil or Poland.

Even just maintaining the pendular equilibrium to conserve some manner of democratic regime will require those who oppose authoritarianism to boldly insist on political leaders who value democratic principles: fair elections, voting rights, civil liberties and rule of law.

Dangerously, many Americans won’t notice the end of democracy as it happens. As the political scientist Tom Pepinksy writes, life in authoritarian states is mostly boring and tolerable.

For those who pay attention, the frequency and seriousness of lawless actions can nonetheless make it difficult to sustain an organized opposition.

Until and unless the U.S. nurtures and elects political movements and leaders who make lasting democratic changes, I believe the country will continue to lurch back and forth in its pendulum swing.

An executive order signed Tuesday by President Donald Trump mandating that states require residents to provide proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote is raising questions about the future of certain Michigan election laws, particularly reforms approved in recent years that have contributed to increased voter turnout.

Place names are more than just labels on a map. They influence how people learn about the world around them and perceive their place in it.

By Seth T. Kannarr, University of Tennessee
Derek H. Alderman, University of Tennessee
and Jordan Brasher, Macalester College

(THE CONVERSATION) — Place names are more than just labels on a map. They influence how people learn about the world around them and perceive their place in it.

Names can send messages and suggest what is and isn’t valued in society. And the way that they are changed over time can signal cultural shifts.

The United States is in the midst of a place-renaming moment. From the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, to the return of Forts Bragg and Benning and the newly re-renamed Mount McKinley in Alaska’s Denali National Park, we are witnessing a consequential shift in the politics of place naming.

This sudden rewriting of the nation’s map – done to “restore American greatness,” according to President Donald Trump’s executive order that made some of them official – is part of a name game that recognizes place names as powerful brands and political tools.

In our research on place naming, we explore how this “name game” is used to assert control over shared symbols and embed subtle and not-so-subtle messages in the landscape.

As geography teachers and researchers, we also recognize the educational and emotional impact the name game can have on the public.

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Place names can have psychological effects

Renaming a place is always an act of power.

People in power have long used place naming to claim control over the identity of the place, bolster their reputations, retaliate against opponents and achieve political goals.

These moves can have strong psychological effects, particularly when the name evokes something threatening. Changing a place name can fundamentally shift how people view, relate to or feel that they belong within that place.

In Shenandoah County, Virginia, students at two schools originally named for Confederate generals have been on an emotional roller coaster of name changes in recent years. The schools were renamed Mountain View and Honey Run in 2020 amid the national uproar over the murder of George Floyd, a Black man killed by a police officer in Minneapolis.

Four years later, the local school board reinstated the original Confederate names after conservatives took control of the board.

One Black eighth grader at Mountain View High School — now re-renamed Stonewall Jackson High School — testified at a board meeting about how the planned change would affect her:

“I would have to represent a man that fought for my ancestors to be slaves. If this board decides to restore the names, I would not feel like I was valued and respected,” she said. The board still approved the change, 5-1.
Even outside of schools, place names operate as a “hidden curriculum.” They provide narratives to the public about how the community or nation sees itself – as well as whose histories and perspectives it considers important or worthy of public attention.

Place names affect how people perceive, experience and emotionally connect to their surroundings in both conscious and subconscious ways. Psychologists, sociologists and geographers have explored how this sense of place manifests itself into the psyche, creating either attachment or aversion to place, whether it’s a school, mountain or park.

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A tale of two forts

Renaming places can rally a leader’s supporters through rebranding.

Trump’s orders to restore the names Fort Bragg and Fort Benning, both originally named for Confederate generals, illustrate this effect. The names were changed to Fort Liberty and Fort Moore in 2023 after Congress passed a law banning the use of Confederate names for federal installations.

Trump made a campaign promise to his followers to “bring back the name” of Fort Bragg if reelected.

To get around the federal ban, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth identified two unrelated decorated Army veterans with the same last names — Bragg and Benning — but without any Confederate connections, to honor instead.
Call it a sleight of hand or a stroke of genius if you’d like, this tactic allowed the Department of Defense to revive politically charged names without violating the law.

The restoration of the names Bragg and Benning may feel like a symbolic homecoming for those who resisted the original name change or have emotional ties to the names through their memories of living and serving on the base, rather than a connection to the specific namesakes.

However, the names are still reminders of the military bases’ original association with defenders of slavery.

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The place-renaming game

A wave of place-name changes during the Obama and Biden administrations focused on removing offensive or derogatory place names and recognizing Indigenous names.

For example, Clingmans Dome, the highest peak in the Great Smoky Mountains, was renamed to Kuwohi in September 2024, shifting the name from a Confederate general to a Cherokee word meaning “the mulberry place.”

Under the Trump administration, however, place-name changes are being advanced explicitly to push back against reform efforts, part of a broader assault on what Trump calls “woke culture.”

President Barack Obama changed Alaska’s Mount McKinley to Denali in 2015 to acknowledge Indigenous heritage and a long-standing name for the mountain. Officials in Alaska had requested the name change to Denali years earlier and supported the name change in 2015.

Trump, on his first day in office in January 2025, moved to rename Denali back to Mount McKinley, over the opposition of Republican politicians in Alaska. The state Legislature passed a resolution a few days later asking Trump to reconsider.

Georgia Rep. Earl “Buddy” Carter made a recent legislative proposal to rename Greenland as “Red, White, and Blueland” in support of Trump’s expansionist desire to purchase the island, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark.

Danish officials and Greenlanders saw Carter’s absurd proposal as insulting and damaging to diplomatic relations. It is not the first time that place renaming has been used as a form of symbolic insult in international relations.

Renaming the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America might have initially seemed improbable, but it is already reflected in common navigation apps.

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A better way to choose place names

When leaders rename a place in an abrupt, unilateral fashion — often for ideological reasons — they risk alienating communities that deeply connect with those names as a form of memory, identity and place attachment.

A better alternative, in our view, would be to make renaming shared landscapes participatory, with opportunities for meaningful public involvement in the renaming process.

This approach does not avoid name changes, but it suggests the changes should respond to the social and psychological needs of communities and the evolving cultural identity of places — and not simply be used to score political points.

Instead, encouraging public participation — such as through landscape impact assessments and critical audits that take the needs of affected communities seriously — can cultivate a sense of shared ownership in the decision that may give those names more staying power.

The latest place renamings are already affecting the classroom experience. Students are not just memorizing new place labels, but they are also being asked to reevaluate the meaning of those places and their own relationship with the nation and the world.

As history has shown around the world, one of the major downsides of leaders imposing name changes is that the names can be easily replaced as soon as the next regime takes power. The result can be a never-ending name game.