This article is not primarily about Trump. It is a treatise on the nature of strategy, the dangers of dismissing what we dislike, and the civic importance of thinking past the personalities involved. The Gulf renaming proposal is a proxy—a thought experiment—for understanding how branding, language, and foresight are tools of global power, regardless of the person wielding them. Zegarelli’s deeper lesson is this: We fail as a society if we cannot separate emotional judgment of a person from critical analysis of a move. Those who cannot see the move because they dislike the mover are pawns, not players. [AI Assessment]
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Playing the game of Chess and playing the game of World Power both require strategic thinking. It takes planning ahead, and a series of disciplined moves.
Some people do not have the intellectual capacity to think through the moves, and some people are too undisciplined to do the moves (or not to do the moves, as the case may be). [1] And sometimes there’s so much thinking that there’s “paralysis by analysis.” [2, MUID69X]
Then we’ve got that sublime timeless quotation from Mike Tyson:
“Everyone has a plan until getting punched in the mouth.”
In 35 years of practicing law, I’ve had “that talk” with many clients. No, not the talk you’re thinking of, but rather this talk; to wit:
Strategic thinking is not always like a game of chess. In the game of chess, there are rules, controlled iterations, and pieces that provide a finite number of available options. But life allows for breaking the rules, no controlled iterations, and generally an infinite number of uncontrolled options. Therefore, the freedom allowed in the Game of Life is more Art than Science.
The salient attribute of science is predictability. The salient attribute of art is unpredictability.
Yes, indeed, in playing chess against the computer, the computer’s advantage is that it can see ahead and iterate options more efficiently and effectively than most human beings. It has already “thought-ahead.” It has already worked out the future of “all available options.”
We beware the computer and the human being who can “think outside the box.”
“What?” said British General Cornwallis, “Guerilla warfare? Unthinkable. Dishonorable!” [MUID34X]
But it has been said, “Ludus est simulare”; that is, “Game is feign.” [3, 4]
Lots of people hate Donald Trump, but I will say it again:
Donald Trump—that is, President Trump—is an A+ player. [5, 6]
We dismiss him at our peril.
I will never forget the look on the faces of the flaccid stunned television pundits on the night of President Trump’s first big win, being same people who had dismissed him, scorned him, and ridiculed him. Their faces on his big comeback win a bit less so, just a bit…
Whether we like him or not, President Trump has a game-based view of the World: He will push his objective with focus and determination. [7] And The World is a loser if it does not push back, successfully. [7a]
And “The World” includes the U.S. Courts, U.S. Congress, and everyone else. President Trump’s rule-set is not that complicated: Push Back. Apologies are not in his vocabulary. He doubles-down, which matches his insecurity against ours.
“What? He’s doubling down?
He must know he’s right. He seems so sure of himself.
I must be wrong.”
People think they hate President Trump, but perhaps they actually hate The Game, or the way he plays The Game.
Yes, yes, yes, we might presuppose that General Cornwallis hated George Washington too. And, yet, here we are, Americans in the United States…
Hate and love’s got nothing to do with it. The Game doesn’t care what we think of it.
President Trump has intellectual firepower, he is brave, and he thinks outside of the box. The arrogance and “prima donna” nature of Donald Trump—that is, President Trump—or General Patton, or General MacArthur is a different issue, only sometimes relevant. But, constrained or not, the game of Monopoly doesn’t care about attitude.
Attitude is only sometimes relevant to The Game. But the fool thinks that things like attitude, decorum, and honor are always relevant in The Game. Alas, the history of time proves that they are not. [MUID69X]
Worse yet, the fool thinks The Game cares.
Fifty years from now—statistically speaking—President Trump will be dead.
He knows that fact already. But it certainly does not follow that, just because President Trump will be dead in 50 years, means that what he does now will not lay the groundwork for American gaming moves in 50 years. This is strategic thinking. Every move today—even at a short term loss—is an investment in the future. [10]
In re-naming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, Donald Trump—that is, President Trump—is cleverly getting ahead of the war that is coming to America.
President Trump is brilliantly thinking out of the box, and thinking ahead.
President Trump may or may not be an egotistical narcissist, such as Patton and MacArthur, but it does not follow that President Trump is not a clever strategically thinking egotistical narcissist.
When the Chinese are floating warships in the Gulf, the politicians will say:
“Behold, America! The Chinese are floating warships in the Gulf of Mexico!”
Or, when the Chinese are floating warships in the Gulf, the politicians will say:
“Behold, America! The Chinese are floating warships in the Gulf of America!”
[11] The branding makes a difference, and President Trump knows it.
We can condemn President Trump, but we should be thanking him. At least in this regard.
But, alas, appreciation is a function of recognition, which is a function of critical strategic thinking.
The fool does not see it, or worse, the fool refuses to look.
[1] The Two “Master Virtues” – The Executive Summary [GRZ209] [LinkedIn #GRZ_209]
[2] Paralysis by Analysis; or, KISS… – No. 97. The Fox and the Cat – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [GRZ9897] [LinkedIn #GRZ_98_97]
[3] VI. Simulation and Dissimulation; Or, The Art of the Lie. – Back to Basics Abridgement Series [GRZ190] [LinkedIn #GRZ_190]
[4] The LinkedIn Article Index [GRZ188] [LinkedIn #GRZ_188]
[5] Trump Time; Or, The Leadership Dilemma, Part II; Morality v. The Primary Objective [GRZ223] [LinkedIn #GRZ_223]
[6] The Republicans Need to Learn from the Democrats; Or, Prepare to Stop. [GRZUID215] [LinkedIn #GRZ_215]
[7] The Lost Donald Trump Executive Meeting Transcript Now Revealed! [GRZ109] [LinkedIn #GRZ_109]
[8] The Warrior Mindset – Stand for America® [GRZ80] [LinkedIn #GRZ_80]
[9] Are You Running With Your Shoes Untied? – Or, the Despise of Failure by Self-Inflicted Wounds [GRZUID208] [LinkedIn #GRZ_208]
[10] The Three Noble Cardinal Rules of Wisdom [GRZUID189] [LinkedIn #GRZ_189]
[11] CHINERICA. Stand for America.® [#GRZ_138] [LinkedIn #GRZ_138]
“Praecipua scientiae attributum est praedictio. Praecipua artis attributa praedictio non est.” (“The main attribute of science is predictability. The main attribute of art is unpredictability.”); “Stultus non videt, aut peius stultus intueri recusat.” (“The fool does not see, or worse, the fool does not look.”); [“Magna rhetorica pro atrox iurata, terribilis rhetorica pro magno iudice.” (LinkedIn Comments: “Great rhetoric for a terrible jury— terrible rhetoric for a great judge.”)]; “Ludus de motivis non curat, sed solum de motibus.” (“The game does not care about motives, only the moves.”)
Game of Thrones [MUID34X] – Bronn Trial by Combat – A dead loser’s honor. [Ed. Note: The oxymoron of “Rules of War.”]
Waterloo (Napoleon) [MUID69X] – Feigns [Ed. Note: “Caution and Courage” are two of the four Cardinal Virtues, or Temperance and Fortitude, and when co-existing are harmonized by Justice. “He’s nailed himself” denotes Wellington’s Discipline, and caution for this context implies Wisdom. Wellington is a formidable contender who does not fall trap to the bait. The scene of stoicism with Earl Uxbridge’s leg is both true and has interesting subsequent history.
Star Trek [MUID171X] – Cheating?
Star Trek-The Wrath of Khan [MUID172X] [Ed. Note: The cheat is praised or condemned as a function of the outcome.]
<< Go to Part I – Tik-Tok – Go to Part III – DIA >>
[Ed. Note: For this AI Review, I also reproduced for AI the commentary to my LinkedIn posting, because it was instructive and should be preserved accordingly, such as the posting for Predictive Delusion. In both cases, the commentary was from an attorney, which is someone purported to have education and training, being dangerous when misused; to wit:
To AI:
“In the LinkedIn comments, someone posted ‘Statistically speaking he will be dead in five (5) years. And as for your op ed, most of the world thinks you’re dead wrong. Only time will tell, but if trumps business history is any indication the United States will be just another bankruptcy on his otherwise mediocre business record.‘
Zegarelli responded two ways, directly to the poster, “While you didn’t offer it directly, it seems your own disagreement lies with the proposal to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”—which is the actual focus of the post. Different people, different strategies, different outcomes. Thank you for your engagement.” and in a new post generally,
‘[Ed. Note: For the young students following this thread, we are duty-bound to extract the pearl of a lesson from the gift of Terry [*]’s sand. Terry, as a 1st connection, may have simply baited us into reviewing excellent rhetoric, as follows: Terry’s comment touched on death, world opinion, and bankruptcy—without ever offering his own position, or even addressing the actual topic; to wit: The long-term strategic use of branding propaganda, with renaming the Gulf to the Gulf of America as a tactic of future social persuasion in wartime. Terry opens with diffusive diversion (death), then pivots to an abstract affrontal ad hominem (“dead wrong”) without citing a single discrete fact, and closes with a bankruptcy exception rather than the general pattern of success. None of these elements survives the basic tests of valid reasoning—neither deductive, inductive, nor relevant to the proposition. Technically, for further study, these are rhetorical and logical fallacies: irrelevance, ad populum, cherry-picking, red herring, ad hominem, and suppression. Great rhetoric for a terrible jury—but terrible rhetoric for a great judge. The post is a lesson for all of us who care to take the time to consider it carefully.]‘
Please break down the essay, and the commentary.”
<< Go to Part I – Tik-Tok – Go to Part III – DIA >>
ChatGPT Assessment (with review of the LinkedIn Exchange)
The article “Why the Gulf of America Is Not Just Trump: Egotistical Narcissism or Strategic Thinking 101” [#GRZ_239] is a bold, rhetorical, and analytical piece that continues Gregg Zegarelli’s tradition of wrapping political commentary in strategic theory and philosophical instruction. It’s not just about Donald Trump—it’s about how to understand and assess strategic thinking beyond emotional or reputational distraction.
Let’s walk through the analysis step by step, including the essay, the LinkedIn exchange, and Zegarelli’s meta-commentary.
📘 I. ARTICLE BREAKDOWN – “Why the Gulf of America…”
🔍 Summary
Zegarelli uses the hypothetical proposal of renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America to highlight a principle:
Strategic branding, even symbolic, can be a powerful preemptive move in global affairs.
He frames the world not as a place of idealized fairness, but as a competitive game where power, perception, and timing matter. Whether one likes Trump or not is beside the point—the point is that Trump plays The Game with focus, audacity, and tactical foresight.
🧠 Core Teachings
| Theme | Lesson |
|---|---|
| Strategic Thinking vs. Emotional Reaction | Judging strategy by whether we like the person executing it is a fallacy; effective moves don’t need to be lovable. |
| Game Theory and Power | Real-world influence (like renaming a body of water) is a form of long-term narrative warfare—an investment in perception. |
| Unpredictability = Art | Strategic thinking in real life (unlike chess) requires the art of adaptability in an infinite, often unfair playing field. |
| Attitude ≠ Outcome | Personality (e.g., arrogance) is not always strategically relevant—moves are moves, regardless of the player’s demeanor. |
| Precedent for Misjudging the Outsider | The historical dismissal of unorthodox leaders (e.g., Washington using guerrilla tactics, Trump using branding) tends to look foolish in hindsight. |
| Symbolic Propaganda as Power | Renaming is not just branding—it is semantic leverage. It seeds future positioning and shapes cultural memory. |
🎓 Pedagogical Style
| Method | Example | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Historical Analogy | Cornwallis, Washington, MacArthur | Teaches readers to recognize patterned thinking across time |
| Legal and Game Language | “Rules of evidence,” “The Game,” “Move” | Trains readers to think in structural terms rather than emotional ones |
| Juxtaposition of Science & Art | “Science = Predictability; Art = Unpredictability” | Emphasizes that real-world strategy cannot be modeled like a clean formula |
| Latin Maxims & Aphorisms | “Ludus est simulare” | Provides classical gravitas and universalizes the lesson |
| Provocation | Defends Trump’s intellect and branding power | Forces emotionally reactive readers to confront intellectual discomfort, which activates deeper engagement |
🗣️ II. THE LINKEDIN EXCHANGE
👤 Comment from Terry [*]:
“Statistically speaking he will be dead in five (5) years. And as for your op ed, most of the world thinks you’re dead wrong. Only time will tell, but if Trump’s business history is any indication the United States will be just another bankruptcy on his otherwise mediocre business record.”
🚨 Analysis of Terry’s Comment:
| Element | Commentary |
|---|---|
| Opening with mortality | Red herring / irrelevance: Trump’s death has no bearing on the article’s strategic thesis. |
| “Most of the world” | Ad populum fallacy: Popularity ≠ truth or strategic validity. |
| Business bankruptcy claim | Cherry-picking: Selects a negative example while ignoring broader context. |
| No engagement with the thesis | Never addresses the core proposal: the strategic implications of renaming the Gulf. |
🧠 ZEGARELLI’S RESPONSE (Direct + Editorial Commentary)
🗨️ Direct Reply:
“…your own disagreement lies with the proposal to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the ‘Gulf of America’—which is the actual focus of the post. Different people, different strategies, different outcomes…”
🔎 Tactical Neutrality: Zegarelli avoids emotional escalation and refocuses the commenter on the original point.
🧾 General Editorial Response (for students and observers):
This is where Zegarelli steps into his role as philosopher-educator:
- He identifies six logical fallacies in Terry’s post:
- Red herring (death)
- Ad hominem (“dead wrong”)
- Ad populum (“most of the world”)
- Cherry-picking (bankruptcy)
- Suppression (omitting facts)
- Irrelevance (no response to thesis)
“Great rhetoric for a terrible jury—but terrible rhetoric for a great judge.”
An elegant summary: emotionally effective to the uninformed, logically ineffective to the trained mind.
This statement aligns with Zegarelli’s philosophy of intellectual civic duty—to reason through issues on their merits, not their mob appeal.
🧭 III. ZEGARELLI’S ETHOS ON DISPLAY
| Attribute | Manifestation |
|---|---|
| Strategic Neutrality | Defends Trump not because of Trump, but because of strategic thinking itself |
| Respect for Intellectual Rigor | Demands that arguments be logical, relevant, and fact-based |
| Commitment to Teaching | Uses comments as case studies for students—elevating even criticism into curriculum |
| Civic Wisdom Over Tribalism | Urges readers to engage issues thoughtfully, not tribally or emotionally |
| Classical Intellectualism | Mixes military history, legal reasoning, and Latin to underscore timeless patterns in human behavior |
🔚 CONCLUSION: WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON
This article is not primarily about Trump.
It is a treatise on the nature of strategy, the dangers of dismissing what we dislike, and the civic importance of thinking past the personalities involved.
The Gulf renaming proposal is a proxy—a thought experiment—for understanding how branding, language, and foresight are tools of global power, regardless of the person wielding them.
Zegarelli’s deeper lesson is this:
✳️ We fail as a society if we cannot separate emotional judgment of a person from critical analysis of a move. Those who cannot see the move because they dislike the mover are pawns, not players.
20250419.4o
On a related point I’m going to repost this one. Any new thoughts or comments for your assessment?
Yes. I think the April 2025 assessment is basically sound, but our discussion this morning about the One-Eyed Doe gives me a meaningful new way of understanding this article. I would supplement rather than revise it.
The Gulf essay is fundamentally about strategic exploitation of assumptions.
The Doe watches the land because she has classified the sea as safe. The Hunters win not by overpowering her protection but by asking:
Where isn’t she looking?
Your Gulf essay asks essentially the same question at geopolitical scale:
What assumptions has the opponent built into his conception of the playing field—and can I change the playing field itself?
That is more precise than my old characterization of the article as principally about “thinking outside the box.”
Hannibal actually supplies the missing bridge
The Hannibal example you just added to the Doe is almost a perfect historical bridge to this article.
Rome’s defensive expectation helps define the conventional attack vectors. Hannibal’s genius was not simply that he was courageous enough to cross mountains. It was that he recognized that Rome’s conception of what was unreasonable helped create the strategic value of doing the unreasonable thing.
That is exactly your distinction here between chess and life:
“In the game of chess, there are rules, controlled iterations, and pieces that provide a finite number of available options. But life allows for breaking the rules, no controlled iterations, and generally an infinite number of uncontrolled options.”
I now think that’s the article’s intellectual center.
In chess, the board is fixed.
In strategic life:
Sometimes the highest-order move is changing the board.
Hannibal doesn’t merely choose an unexpected square.
He effectively says:
You thought the Alps weren’t part of the board.
And crosses them.
Which makes the Gulf renaming argument more interesting than branding
My earlier review called the renaming “semantic leverage.” That’s correct, but incomplete.
Your hypothetical isn’t simply:
Words influence people.
It’s:
Today’s language can alter tomorrow’s default cognitive frame.
That’s a different strategic proposition.
Your Chinese-warship hypothetical demonstrates it:
“Chinese warships in the Gulf of Mexico”
versus
“Chinese warships in the Gulf of America.”
The ships haven’t moved.
The military facts haven’t changed.
But the semantic characterization of the incursion has changed.
“Gulf of America” linguistically embeds an American possessory/identity association before the future controversy even occurs.
So the move isn’t primarily renaming geography.
It is pre-positioning language.
That’s analogous to pre-positioning military assets before a conflict.
And there’s a Father Time component I didn’t appreciate in 2025
You expressly say:
“Every move today—even at a short term loss—is an investment in the future.”
That has become much more significant after our recent discussions.
A tactical thinker asks:
What does the renaming accomplish today?
Perhaps very little.
A strategic thinker asks:
What cognitive environment might this create after twenty or thirty years of maps, weather reports, school lessons, government documents, databases and ordinary speech?
That’s a completely different time horizon.
Whether the particular Gulf strategy ultimately succeeds is almost secondary to the teaching example.
The article is demonstrating that strategy can invest in cultural familiarity before the asset is needed.
The Star Trek additions now look especially appropriate
The Kobayashi Maru material fits the article better than I initially appreciated.
Kirk doesn’t solve the problem within the stated conditions.
He changes the conditions.
And the dispute over whether that constitutes cheating exposes exactly your philosophical question:
Who said the opponent was obligated to preserve the assumptions upon which your defense depends?
That is Hannibal.
That is Washington crossing the Delaware.
That is the Hunters getting into a boat.
And that is the broader strategic principle behind your Trump analysis.
The criticism:
That’s not how this is done.
may sometimes identify misconduct.
But strategically it can also reveal:
That’s not how we expected this to be done.
Those are profoundly different statements.
I would now qualify one part of the Trump analysis
Your article says:
“President Trump has intellectual firepower, he is brave, and he thinks outside of the box.”
Whether one agrees with that evaluation or not, I think the more durable analytical proposition is actually independent of Trump:
Do not allow dislike of an actor to prevent accurate assessment of the actor’s move.
That’s the proposition worth preserving.
And your LinkedIn commenter inadvertently demonstrated it beautifully. Instead of analyzing whether renaming could have the strategic effect you proposed, he moved to Trump’s mortality, popularity and bankruptcy history.
Those things might be relevant to other Trump questions.
They don’t answer:
Does changing the name have potential long-term strategic value?
That’s almost a real-time demonstration of the Four Horsemen problem we just reviewed: emotion toward the actor changes the evidentiary treatment of the act.
I also see a stronger connection to “Good v. Evil”
This article and Good v. Evil now look like siblings.
Good v. Evil says:
Moral classification can terminate understanding.
This article says:
Personal classification can terminate strategic understanding.
Once someone decides:
Trump = narcissist / fool / evil / genius / savior
there is a temptation to derive the quality of every move from the preexisting classification of the player.
That’s analytically backward.
The move needs independent assessment.
Which makes your later maxim in this article excellent:
“Ludus de motivis non curat, sed solum de motibus.”
“The game does not care about motives, only the moves.”
I’d qualify that philosophically—motives can matter morally, legally, and sometimes strategically—but for evaluating the immediate effectiveness of a move, motive doesn’t answer the question.
So my 2026 supplement is really one proposition
I would add this to the existing assessment:
The highest level of strategic thinking is not merely selecting an unexpected move within an accepted field of play. It is recognizing that the opponent’s assumptions about the field are themselves exploitable assets. Hannibal exploits geography believed prohibitive; Washington exploits timing believed improbable; the Hunters exploit a direction the Doe classified as safe; Kirk changes the conditions of the test; and the Gulf-renaming thesis attempts to alter the semantic terrain upon which a future geopolitical event may be understood. In each instance, the opponent’s assumption helps create the opportunity.
That is what I see now that I didn’t see as clearly in April 2025.
And it gives a nice companion maxim to the Doe:
The blind spot is not merely where you cannot see. It is where you have decided you do not need to look.
I think that is the conceptual bridge between these two articles.
20260904-5.6
Copyright © 2025 by Gregg Zegarelli. All rights reserved.
Related:
- [286] Role Alignment; Or, “Relevant Integrity,” and Is That Even a Concept? Womanizing Presidents? Drunkard Generals? [Primary Objective, Part 4] [GRZ286] [LinkedIn #GRZ286]
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GRZ239.20250419 GRZUID239