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Executive orders are not laws. Executive orders have no standing outside of the executive branch of the United States government.
Trump could sign an executive order renaming the Moon Trump Cheese tomorrow, and it would not legally change the name of the Moon; sure, NASA would have to refer to the Moon as Trump cheese, but everybody else would still call it the Moon.
This fact is why the AP is correct in not caving to Trump and still calling the Gulf of Mexico by its recognized name.
Some mainstream outlets that depend on White House access to survive have caved to Trump.
Axios went as far as to issue a statement trying to justify its cave:
Our top priority at Axios is to provide readers with clinical, fact-based reporting. Our standard is to use ‘Gulf of America (renamed by U.S. from Gulf of Mexico)’ in our reporting because our audience is mostly U.S.-based compared to other publishers with international audiences. At the same time, the government should never dictate how any news organization makes editorial decisions. The AP and all news organizations should be free to report as they see fit. This is a bedrock of a free press and durable democracy.
A free press is not every outlet gets to do what they want, including caving to the regime. Facrs are facts, and executive orders can’t change facts.
What the Gulf of Mexico is called is an irrelevant distraction compared to Trump’s retribution campaign against the AP.
The Associated Press is not bending the knee, because it is not Trump’s job to tell the free press what to write and how to write it. Anyone who is bending the knee is not a friend of democracy.
It is more than democracy at stake. The concept of truth and whether the American people can believe what the mainstream reports are on the line.
The Gulf of Mexico name change is stupid but the sister motive behind it represents a serious threat.
What do you think about Axios caving as the AP takes a stand? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
The issue is that Americans are still calling the Gulf of Mexico by its real name, so anyone using the Gulf of America is outing themselves as an administration propagandist.
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