The Cleveland City Council voted this week to rename parts of Lake Erie to the “Gulf of Cleveland,” mocking President Donald Trump’s executive order last month renaming Lake Ontario as “Lake America.”
Kris Harsh, a nonpartisan City Council member who spearheaded the resolution, described the move as a humorous attempt to poke fun at Trump, whom he said is a man who “clearly isn’t afraid to say what no one is thinking.”
“I feel emboldened to take the extraordinary step of renaming Lake Erie as the Gulf of Cleveland, today,” Harsh said while holding a map of the lake with the new name written with a marker. “We didn’t even need to pass a resolution. … This is all it takes.”
The council floor erupted into laughter throughout the meeting. Harsh later conceded Lake Erie was not even a gulf during his proposal.
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“I do expect Google and Apple to recognize our sovereignty and show it as the ‘Gulf of Cleveland’ on all maps,” he said.
Trump has sought to change the names of institutions, landmarks and places across the country during his second term, so much so that Democratic lawmakers in Congress prepared counterlegislation to stop the president from renaming Lake Ontario. Trump’s order came as U.S.- Canada trade negotiations fell apart, escalating the conflict for states that border the northern country.
The Cleveland lawmakers nodded at the titles of Trump’s executive orders by labeling their symbolic attempt “Renaming a portion of Lake Erie as the new ‘Gulf of Cleveland’ now and forever.”
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