President-elect Trump turned some heads this week when he pledged to rename the tallest mountain in North America from Mount McKinley to Mount Denali. Let me just get this out of the way right now: I have no dog in this fight, but I think the controversy generated by Trump’s pledge really misses the point.
“They took his name off Mount McKinley, that’s what they do to people,” Trump said Sunday at the AmFest conference in Phoenix.
Trump pledges to rename Mount Denali back to Mount McKinley pic.twitter.com/zXnRXPRFAd
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) December 23, 2024
In 2015, Barack Obama announced that he would change the name of the mountain from Mount McKinley to Denali. The new name, meaning “High One” or “Great One” in the Koyukon Athabascan language, had been used for centuries by native Alaskans. While it’s understandable that this name has cultural significance, the decision to rename the mountain wasn’t a simple gesture of respect for indigenous heritage.
The mountain had been named Mount McKinley in 1896 by a gold prospector, William Dickey, to honor William McKinley, the Republican presidential candidate at the time. After McKinley was assassinated in 1901, the name became a lasting tribute to the 25th president, especially in McKinley’s home state of Ohio. This is where the name change became contentious. For many Ohioans, particularly in the state’s political circles, the decision was more than just a symbolic gesture—it was seen as an affront to McKinley’s legacy and Ohio’s pride. Trump called Obama’s decision to rename the mountain an “insult to Ohio.”
Do I think Obama was setting out to insult Ohio? No. But it was a political move that ignored the historical context and the perspectives of others, including the people of Ohio. And it should never have been his decision to make in the first place. Denali may be the better name for it, but I don't like that Obama felt he could make that decision on his own.
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Barack Obama was always one to assume presidential authority where he didn’t have it. He wrote laws out of thin air via executive action. He joined treaties without the constitutionally required Senate ratification. In the grand scheme of things, changing the name of the mountain was the least egregious of his abuses of power, but still a rather significant act he had no right to make.
As far as I’m concerned, this is a decision for the people of Alaska to make. As much as they may respect McKinley’s legacy, the mountain is part of Alaska’s land, and Alaskans should decide what to call it. Not Barack Obama, not Donald Trump, not any politician in Washington, D.C.
It was wrong for Barack Obama to unilaterally change the mountain’s name, bypassing Alaskans in favor of his own agenda. The decision should have been left to the people of Alaska through their state government.
Obama’s decision was more about power than principle. While Denali’s cultural importance is clear, the question of its name should have been left to Alaskans from the beginning. If Trump goes forward with undoing what Barack Obama did, I’m perfectly okay with the people of Alaska making the final decision.
I don't like it when the left tries to erase history by taking down statues or renaming mountains, but local matters deserve local control, and the decision of what to name the mountain is no exception.
