Donald Trump has expressed a series of debated proposals recently. He wants to buy Greenland, merge Canada with the United States and rename the Gulf of Mexico.
But in Alaska, it’s something completely different that has both Republican and Democratic politicians squinting at him. He wants to change the name of North America’s highest mountain.
“A terrible idea”
The mountain has been called Denali in Alaska for centuries. It is the name that the indigenous peoples use and it roughly means “The big one”. But officially, the mountain came to be called Mount McKinley after a gold digger decided to honor then-presidential candidate William McKinley in the late 1800s.
Locally in Alaska, the name Denali has still lived on. And in 2015, Barack Obama therefore decided that the mountain should also officially be called Denali.
When Trump now stated that he wants to change the name back during a meeting with a conservative group in Phoenix, he was met with cheers. But that was in Phoenix. In Alaska, it sounds different.
– It’s a terrible, terrible idea. We’ve already gone through this with President Trump at the beginning of his first term,” Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski told local news channel KTUU.
Even then, Trump presented the proposal. But dropped it after criticism within Republicans.
Fouad Youcefi: “Wants to make an impression”
The Denali statement is one of a series of controversial proposals put forward by Donald Trump after he secured the election win.
– He has not stated the reason, but it is in line with several other things Trump has said. Among other things, they want to change the name of the Mexican golf to the American golf, says Fouad Youcefi, SVT’s USA correspondent.
Youcefi believes that it is about Trump now wanting to set the direction for his term.
– I think it is partly about him wanting to make an impression even before he takes office. He wants to show that the US is moving in a new expansive direction, where they want to make more things American. Regardless of whether it concerns Greenland, Panama, the Gulf of Mexico or Denali. In this case at the expense of indigenous peoples.
William McKinley allegedly never himself visited the mountain named after him. He was president from 1986 until he was assassinated in 1901.