Gulf of America Act

What is this bill?

• HR 276, sponsored by Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA-14)

One of the dumbest silver linings of fascism is that the most obviously fascist bills clock in at about one page in length and don’t hide an ounce of their intentions.

This 1-page, straightforward bill would direct the Secretary of the Interior to oversee the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in all federal paperwork and maps within six months.

Why is this bill fascist?

I mean, really, what’s the big deal with renaming a body of water? People rename geographic things all the time and the Gulf of Mexico has only been called that since…let me check my notes here…1550. And sure, some maps called it the Great Bay of Mexico and the Gulf of New Spain had a pretty big empire to push for that to stick, but by the 1600s, the Gulf of Mexico is what the Europeans called it.

But, once again, so what? Istanbul was Constantinople. Even old New York was once New Amsterdam. The issue is that the Gulf of Mexico is an international body of water directly surrounded by three countries. So it is a bit weird that America would feel justified in renaming a body of water without the input of Mexico and Cuba. For the record, Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, is against it.

Lucky for us, there is an organization that exists to remedy such disputes: the International Hydrographic Organization. Their main deals are conducting exploration of the seas, training cartographers, and spreading literature about how to be safe on the oceans. They are also in change of standardizing the names of international bodies of water. Since America, Mexico, and Cuba are member states of the IHO, they have agreed for nearly a century to acquiesce to the IHO for naming.

This alone should get the bill mocked out of congress. They key word is should. One of the key qualities of a fascist nation is the need to expand until it hits empire status. This is usually done through annexation and war, but there are ways to insinuate that kind of power without the bloodshed. Such as renaming a body of water unilaterally to show that there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Other nations may denounce the change, but the goal becomes normalization. The change may flop, or it may get accepted by widely used map applications. People will make fun of it, but, as much as it sucks, ridiculous shit is a feature of fascism. Ultimately, a fascist wants to create their own reality that followers buy into. It doesn’t matter if the rest of the world disagrees. Especially when all it will take to change their mind is a forceful annexation.

Which Dems voted for it?

• House

  • No Dems voted yay

As for the Senate, it’s pure shrug emoji. There are bills the House passed months ago that they haven’t taken up and they have about 100 Trump nominations to get through. If this passes the House, I doubt it will be very high priority, unless Trump requests it.

Did it pass?

• Passed the House on 5/8/25 by a vote of 211-206