Trump's renaming mania could bring Szekler autonomy!

At a campaign rally in Clarksville, Tennessee, on Saturday, Donald Trump announced that he would happily rename the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean, and he already knows what to call it. One of them could be named the "Trump Ocean" or the "Ocean of the Americas," or something along those lines, and he would like it to happen before the end of his term. As we've come to expect from the president, the range of options isn't exactly wide: either America or Trump — no other name seems to be on the table, since the American president's geographical imagination is limited to two words, and one of them is his own surname.

The ocean is merely the latest addition to an ever-growing collection. On the very first day of his second term, Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America," and has since banned from White House press briefings any journalists who insisted on using the old name. Then he signed an order renaming Lake Ontario "Lake America," he would like to rename the Strait of Hormuz the "Trump Strait," and he even published a map on which the state of New Mexico appears as "New America." Renaming the Strait of Hormuz is a particularly charming idea, seeing as he wants to claim as his own the very strait that Iran has kept closed since the war it started — a strait the U.S. Navy still hasn't managed to properly reopen. It seems rewriting the world map is easier than freeing up a sea route.

It's time to let go of the comforting assumption that Trump only occasionally says silly things. At some point the American president developed a real feel for the magic of maps, and ever since, he's been rearranging the names on them like a kindergartner who's just gotten his first sticker album and is pasting his own photo into every empty spot. The only difference is that the rest of the world doesn't have to pay for the kindergartner's stickers.

Szeklerland, the territory of MAGAutonomy

Here, on the Transylvanian borderlands, all this could actually be an opportunity. The Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (DAHR) has been promising autonomy for Szeklerland for thirty years, and by all appearances will keep promising it for another thirty — but Trump is a quick decision-maker, especially when raw materials and his own name are involved. All it would take is a single well-crafted piece of fake news on some influencer channel close to the White House — say, that several million years' worth of oil, cobalt and lithium have been discovered under Odorheiu Secuiesc (Székelyudvarhely), and that Harghita County is hiding the entire periodic table underground (twice over: once A to Z, then Z to A), enough to supply humanity for the next thousand years. As for the mineral springs, suffice it to say that, given their rare-earth content, Greenland is just a frozen also-ran by comparison.

After that, all we'd have to do is wait for the Truth Social post:

A week later there would already be a map, complete with Trumpville, Donaldville, and "Lake America" where Lake Sfânta Ana (Saint Anne's Lake) used to be, while Lacu Roșu (Red Lake) would become "MAGA Lake," since at least that name would be honest. The cause of autonomy would thus get further in a single afternoon than the DAHR managed in three decades — though admittedly not quite the way the Szeklers had imagined it. Hunor Kelemen, for his part, could finally point to an international diplomatic success, which the entire Transylvanian Hungarian press — now bought and paid for out of his own pocket — could then celebrate as one. Until then, reality remains: the American president would rather name oceans after himself while his own voters fill up their tanks at record prices, Ukraine gets abandoned in exchange for Russian diesel, and the Nobel Peace Prize has once again gone to someone else.

It's been a crap week, but at least let's have a laugh...

Wasteland