At 80, Trump is scribbling on maps. The fool holding the Sharpie is dangerous

I am in a bit of a tit-for-tat with my building’s management over what I believe is its plan to raise my rent considerably when my lease comes up for renewal in September.

So, this morning, I sent management an email informing it that, effective immediately, the pool at the center of our complex would no longer be called “the pool.” From now on, I wrote, it shall be known as John Casey Lake.

My hope is that renaming a body of chlorinated water after me might convince management to lower my rent rather than raise it. I’m so proud of myself for putting management in an impossible bind.

I got my inspiration for this “stable genius” tactic from Donald Trump. It’s exactly the same logic he used this week when he sat at the Resolute Desk, picked up a Sharpie, crossed out “Lake Ontario” on a map, and wrote “LAKE AMERICA” in its place.

He signed an executive order directing the Interior Department to make the change official within 30 days and told reporters Canada has “been ripping us off for a long time.”

The problem with this edict is the same one confronting my rent-lowering scheme: It’s laughable, unserious, and downright stupid. My landlord isn't going to cut my rent because I decided to name a swimming pool after myself.

And Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has been openly sparring with Trump over tariffs and recently said Trump could “kiss my ass,” is not suddenly going to accept worse trade terms because the lake between the two countries now has “America” scrawled across it in thick black ink.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney rejected the move outright, pointing to the lake's Indigenous name and history. To Trump, his Sharpie is a magic wand. He wields it to sign warped and toothless executive orders or to try to change the course of history.

But the only result is that the felt tip of his Trump-branded permanent marker becomes a bit drier with each stroke.

This is not Trump’s first ridiculous Sharpie stunt. In 2019, he held up a hurricane map with a crude loop drawn around Alabama, insisting the storm was headed there after the National Weather Service had already said otherwise. It became known as “Sharpiegate.” Oh, how little we knew then.

Related: Shepard Smith: Trump Created Fake News With Sharpie

He used a Sharpie to sign an executive order on his first day back in office officially directing U.S. federal agencies to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America,” and since that move, America has gained…thinking…still thinking…absolutely nothing.

We all know what he reportedly drew with a Sharpie — and then signed — on Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous 50th birthday card.

And while he didn’t use a Sharpie, earlier this year, mid-conflict with Iran, he mused about renaming the Strait of Hormuz the “Strait of Trump,” then corrected himself to “Strait of America.”

Upon hearing this threat, I can just see the hard-line leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran frantically trying to negotiate a quick surrender.

The bottom line on all of this might be drawn with a Sharpie, but the force driving the madness is Trump’s abject foolishness. That Sharpie doesn’t move until Trump puts his folly to paper.

His foolishness is at the heart of everything he does. A White House ballroom nobody asked for. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. running health policy with no relevant background. On his watch, the United States has endured the worst measles outbreak in decades, while seemingly every day brings another announcement that something Americans eat has been contaminated and could make them sick — or worse. Kash Patel running the FBI without qualifications while jetting around the world on his government-sponsored private jet. And most foolishly, Pete Hegseth, a blubbering talking head with no management experience, running the Defense Department, the federal government’s largest department by far, while insisting on a “high T” fighting force that he insists looks like the sea of shirtless gay men you could find at a circuit party.

It’s the same lunacy that reportedly led Trump to “save” Natalie Harp and Walt Nauta, whose primary duties are printing memes and delivering Diet Cokes, by whisking them away in a catering cart to a secret third plane in Turkey while leaving behind Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent after Air Force One was allegedly threatened by Iran.

Related: Natalie Harp calls Trump her ‘guardian and protector.’ She is MAGA’s ideal woman

And foolishness is the thread that runs through tariffs slapped on our closest neighbor and largest trading partner for reasons that shift from week to week; a war with Iran that didn't need to happen; ICE operations that look like scenes from 1930s and 1940s Germany; missile strikes on boats full of civilians in international waters; the sanding down of Black and LGBTQ+ history from federal materials; and his obsession with stripping transgender people of rights and dignity. These actions are genuinely consequential and genuinely alarming.

But underneath all of them sits the same batshit crazy impulse on display with the Sharpie and the lake.

There is a famous proverb that perfectly encapsulates Trump: “A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinion.” It is an apt description of how much of the world sees Trump. He’s just playing silly games with himself and that ever-present Sharpie, with little understanding of the implications of those games.

Allies don’t quake at a map with a name crossed out; they roll their eyes and double over in laughter, just as my building management would if I renamed a pool after myself during a lease negotiation.

If anything, the lake stunt hands Canada another reason to dig in, not less. Pointless provocation rarely earns concessions. It mostly just deepens divisions, particularly in the relationship with Canada that Trump has squandered for no reason other than his own delight.

I don't know what comes next as Trump’s public conduct grows more erratic and unserious. Trump has floated renaming other waterways before, so at this rate, don't be shocked if the Atlantic Ocean gets crossed out with a Sharpie on a poster board and named the American Ocean.

It is at once a joke and a threat. Trump has it in for our NATO allies. Hell, he wants to occupy Greenland. If he spots some bizarre negotiating advantage — or a chance for revenge — he is liable to try anything.

It's easy to laugh at, but the laughter shouldn't obscure the recklessness of it all. A Sharpie can change a name on a map, but that doesn’t mean it’s drawing reality. My pool is still a pool. Lake Ontario will always be Lake Ontario. And the longer Trump wields that Sharpie, the more foolish — and dangerous — the joke becomes.

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