Lake America
By Julie A. Ryan
Creativity is something I value in a president. I didn’t know this until Donald Trump—in his juvenile game of attempted domination over Canada—decided to claim Lake Ontario and named it “Lake America.” Really? Is that the best the Donald, self-proclaimed king of giving nicknames, can do?
“Lake America” is seriously lacking in creativity. If only Trump’s neurons were firing correctly, he could come up with a new lake name creative enough to gain the admiration of creative people across the political spectrum.
We Americans are actually lucky that Trump has donut goo for brains because he could have done so much more damage if he was intelligent. Yes, he figured out how to become a political cult leader by tapping into the fears of people who got him elected that he’s never tried to help. But if he was actually intelligent, Trump could have achieved, by now, the world domination his two-sizes-too-small heart desires. Because of the endless line of spineless supplicants found everywhere from in the American media to the Supreme Court, who are willing to sacrifice their integrity in exchange for the hope of securing some kind of magical orange-flavored power, Trump could have conquered so much more by now if he only had a fully functioning brain.
Trump could have colonized vulnerable island nations as well as stolen Greenland by now if he was able to comprehend that discretion is a big part of winning a game of domination. But Trump’s toddler-size brain can’t help but blurt out loud what his childish demands are every time he sees something his narcissistic eyes want.
Instead of obsessing over putting his name on currency, passports, National Park Passes, the Institute of Peace, the Palm Beach airport, and the Kennedy Center, Trump should be thinking about more strategic name placement. If Trump was smart, he could have seized the chain and put his name on every Taco Bell — El Trumpo Taco Bell — to show that he truly has command of the border. Because he’s gross and has no taste, if he was actually thinking, he could issue an executive order banning “Mc” from all Golden Arches restaurant signage and dominate the fast-food world by serving “billions and billions” at “Donald’s.” Yes, that sounds stupid. But it’s not any more stupid than issuing an executive order to change Lake Ontario to “Lake America.”
Trump’s stupid moves and lack of creativity inspires my creativity. Back in 2015, when I was writing my trilogy before Trump was elected, I was already coming up with creative things an American cult leader could do with the power of the presidency. I deeply regret cutting some of the detailed descriptions of what I had a cult-leader president doing to a future America. I eliminated those details because I thought readers would find them too unbelievable. None of what I wrote in my When Life Was Still rough draft eleven years ago was as crazy and idiotic as what Trump has actually done to America.
Changing the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America,” starting a trade war with ever-friendly Canada via Trump’s insane obsession with tariffs, trying to claim Canada as a 51st state, and renaming Lake Ontario via executive order is simply absurd. It’s so absurd, that my creative brain keeps trying to write an appropriate ending to Trump’s reign of terror on the world. Unfortunately, I can’t list the details of my ideas here because Trump’s American dictatorship now has goons hunting down and incarcerating Americans simply for exercising free speech.
So to stay under the radar of Trump’s thought police, I will just say that my ideal ending involves everyone who has ever enabled the tyrannical behavior that Trump has unleashed on the world. I would hold them all accountable for their role in the damage that Trump has done. Because there aren’t enough prisons to hold all of Trump’s corrupt cronies, ideally, they would be sentenced to living out the rest of their days on a floating prison in the middle of “Lake Dontario.”
© 2026 by Julie A. Ryan. All rights reserved.
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WHEN LIFE WAS STILL . . . 