It’s hardly a secret that Donald Trump likes to rename things, but during the president’s second term, he’s placed a special emphasis on, of all things, bodies of water.

As much of the world knows, the Republican invested an enormous amount of time and energy trying to rename the Gulf of Mexico, for example, which was soon followed by a fleeting effort to start referring to the Persian Gulf as “the Gulf of Arabia.” Last week, he added to the list, signing an executive order declaring his unilateral belief that Lake Ontario should forevermore be known as “Lake America.”

At the Oval Office event marking the occasion, Trump went on to suggest he might also try to change the names of the Atlantic and/or Pacific oceans, although I think he was kidding.

Nevertheless, with nine weeks remaining before the midterm elections and with early voting getting underway in some states in just a few weeks, the public does not appear impressed. The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, for example, found that 63% of Americans are against renaming Lake Ontario, while just 14% endorsed the idea.

Confronted with this public reaction, Trump decided to keep adding to his ridiculous list. On Wednesday, apropos of nothing, the president wrote to his social media platform:

Now that we have it under U.S.A. control, should we change the name Hormuz Strait to TRUMP STRAIT??? Like America itself, it would be “hotter” than ever before! Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Right off the bat, it’s worth emphasizing that Trump’s repeated insistence that the United States now “controls” the Strait of Hormuz is absurd.

Let’s not forget that he made similar comments about renaming the Strait of Hormuz after himself in March, although at the time the president played it up for laughs. Six months later, there was no implied humor in his missive about the waterway, which he’s also begun referring to in recent weeks as a U.S. territory. (It’s not.)

But reading Trump’s latest nonsense, I found myself thinking about Republican Rep. Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma.

The Bulwark obtained an audio recording of comments the congresswoman made at Oklahoma State University last week, where she reflected on the electoral landscape to a Republican audience and on the degree to which the party is burdened by the president’s antics.

“The challenge that we have is that we have to get over the narrative that ‘I don’t like this guy, so I’m going to vote for the Democrat,’” Bice said. “Because I’m telling you right now, I’m hearing it already.”

In reference to the president’s executive order, signed hours earlier, she added, “We’re not helping ourselves when we decide to rename Lake Ontario ‘Lake America.’ This does not help the case.”

Bice’s team later suggested that the broader context of her comments were more forgiving, but the quote was nevertheless striking: A conservative Republican, in one of the nation’s most reliably red states, speaking to a Republican audience, conceded that Trump isn’t doing the party any favors.

Less than a week later, Trump’s talk about renaming the Strait of Hormuz after himself (to borrow Bice’s phrasing) also “does not help the case.”

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