My Country Has No Name

I was born and raised in a country without a name, only a description.

Its official title, the one that appears on its birth certificate and far too many bank loans, is the “United States of America.” But that’s a description, not a name. It’s like calling your dog “Friendly Mammal of Texas.”

It’s an accurate description, sure, but so would be “Some People, Mountains, and Plains of America.”

• Yes, we have states. One could argue they are no longer “united,” but they probably were when the country was saddled with that uncreative label.

• Yes, it is in America, but so are 34 other independent countries and 22 dependent territories.

So when people from other countries in the Americas claim it is arrogant for the USA to refer to itself as “America,” it’s hard to argue. Bolivia, Canada, Nicaragua, and over 50 other places are also America.

Then again, what are we supposed to call it?

Some argue it should be referred to as “The United States,” but aside from being too long (we are a lazy-mouthed people), it isn’t the only country with that in its name, either.

The country to our immediate south — which a bigoted minority in our unnamed country tries to forget by hiding it behind a wall and deporting its visitors — is officially named Estados Unidos Mexicanos (United Mexican States), so there goes that idea.

We could have named it after one of our founders: Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, etc. But when those guys dreamed up this place, they were trying to escape the idea that any one person is so much better than all the others that they deserve to have the place named after them. Despite the (now-absurd) hypocrisy of declaring that “all men are created equal” and have the right to “liberty,” then going home to order your slaves to harvest your crops, the founders were trying to denounce the whole idea of a king.

Hence, it’s a good thing they resisted calling it Washingtonia or Jeffersonistan. However, 250 years later, we’re once again trying to squash the whole king idea, with massive, repeated, nationwide protests of millions of people waving cleverly insulting signs objecting to a certain malignant narcissistic clown who imagines himself a king.

We know this because he likes being portrayed as one in childish AI-generated images of himself wearing a bejeweled crown and an ermine bathrobe with his foot on the neck of a peasant. And he decorates every space he inhabits like the jewelry display case at a pawn shop. If you stumbled into his bathroom, you wouldn’t know whether to pawn your watch or drop a deuce.

He also likes to put his name and photo on everything. That’s not as kingly as it is dictatorly, though. The kind of leaders who insist on reminding their vassals who’s in charge are usually the ones who worry most about being overthrown by angry mobs, or assassinated by insiders who are tired of being treated like turds in a solid gold toilet. (At least one of which he happens to own.)

He even puts his name on things that already have names, like the Kennedy Center, a Florida airport for rich white people, and an institute of peace, of all things. That’s like adding Hitler’s name to a synagogue.

How long before he convinces Burger King to change its name to King Trump’s Burger Palace, or McDonald’s to rename their fries “Trump McDicktaters”?

He claims it is inaccurate to compare him to Hitler, but when you’re using the Führer’s entire fascist/racist formula, your followers flash the “Sieg heil” salute, and you’re building enormous concentration camps all over the country, you’re pretty much only a silly mustache away from Hitler. And like his hero, he even has laughable bangs.

My guess is we are not too far away from our wannabe king suggesting we name the country after him. We may all be living in the Forever Authoritarian Republic of Trump before long. The only upside of that would be that people the world over would doubtless refer to it as “FART.”

The jury is still out on how or when our nameless country’s experiment in fascism will conclude, but the natives are becoming extremely restless. Fully two-thirds of us United States of Americans North of Mexico cringe at the careening clown car full of billionaire buffoons that our nameless country has become. We are perennially embarrassed and often marvel at how this adolescent man-baby and his selfish cronies can be so utterly without shame.

Sadly, it would seem that for a while longer at least, here in FART, being a shameless prick is the new black. One can only hope that the Orange Menace will soon be wearing a federally supplied jumpsuit that matches his makeup.

However we eventually awaken from this nightmare, I suggest we rename the country with recent history in mind. Maybe something like “OOPS!,” which could stand for “Oligarchies Oppress People, Stupid!”

Some of my readers have said they wish I’d refrain from commenting on politics in my articles and comics. And I wish they’d have been able to recognize a fascist grifting conman before they went to the polls.

For more of my comics and my email list: bizarro.com/blog

My graphic novel in progress: peyotecowboy.net

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