Comedian Bill Maher has ridiculed liberal criticism of President Donald Trump's decision to rename Lake Ontario as "Lake America," suggesting that those on the left are hypocritical given their own history of altering language for political purposes.
During the opening monologue of HBO's "Real Time" on Friday, Maher joked about Trump's move, which occurred amidst a trade dispute with Canada. "Trump is so mad at Canada he renamed Lake Ontario Lake America," Maher quipped. "Now I gotta buy a new globe again."
This was not the first time Trump has changed a geographical name, Maher noted, referencing a previous instance where the Gulf of Mexico was reportedly referred to as the "Gulf of America." The executive order to rename the lake was signed by Trump in the Oval Office on Thursday, with the president stating it was "official, effective immediately."
Maher specifically targeted the outrage from liberals, saying, "They say you can’t just go around changing things to fit your political agenda. Just ask any Latinx birthing person."
NewsBusters Managing Editor Curtis Houck echoed Maher's sentiment, telling Fox News Digital that the left's acceptance of terms like "Latinx" and "birthing person" undermines their objections to Trump's renaming. "The fact that 'Latinx' and 'birthing person' are increasingly accepted as a punchline rather than a serious demographic statement should give all of us hope that ‘Woke One’ is dead and we're never going back to that farcical time," Houck said. "The left needs to take a seat before they can say anything about anything being renamed."
NewsBusters Executive Editor Tim Graham added that liberals frequently seek to rename things to align with their ideological goals. "Liberals want to rename all kinds of things to satisfy their urge for wokeness," Graham stated. "Just in this decade, they've pulled down all kinds of statues and renamed scads of military bases. What they hate is anything Trump does to add a patriotic pro-America tinge to something which they associate more with his ego than with patriotism. They see red – as in a red MAGA cap."
Graham further commented that the media often accommodates ethnic and LGBTQ pressure groups' demands for linguistic changes. "The media routinely genuflect ethnic and LGBTQ pressure groups and their demands to remake the language we're all supposed to use," he said. "So they can't seriously object to renaming things. They just want to be the only people who get to rename things."