I don't think it's inconsequential.

Dictators make spurious announcements in order to see who obeys and who doesn't, and then punish those who didn't, in order to further their own grip on power.

Whether the dictator does this one time, or a million times, each time matters. Each time you obey the dictator, other people see you obeying the dictator, which is you handing your credibility to the dictator. It entrenches them further. See The Power of the Powerless for how it played out in the Soviet Union: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_the_Powerless#Hav...

> Havel uses the example of a greengrocer who displays in his shop the sign Workers of the world, unite! Since failure to display the sign could be seen as disloyalty, he displays it and the sign becomes not a symbol of his enthusiasm for the regime, but a symbol of both his submission to it and humiliation by it.

That such an order exists is the giveaway

It's part of the "flood the field with bullshit" scheme of Steve Bannon

I don’t understand why the phrasing of the order matters. It’s very obviously a petulant and childish move made in response to trade negotiation failures with Canada. That’s literally what Trump himself has said:

> The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to be doing much business with Ontario any longer. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1171557898746...