> why waste time and energy discussing silly things he might do when he is literally doing silly things now, for real?
The example used was making a larger point than, oh no, "Canada -> Beaverstan", for laughs.
The point is: What line would be too far for industry to resist presidential renaming by fiat. A kind of power with known risks. Renaming by fiat has a name, "Newspeak", a term coined in the not very silly book, 1984, by George Orwell.
Trump has a history of doing lots of "silly" things just to see if he can. It is a low risk way for him to pre-test, or pre-expand, any barriers to more serious expressions of his power. Such as renaming things in a way that undermines or alters the impact of laws.