Trump likes renaming people, places and things. He's not the first to deploy that perk of power
This time, he's insisting that Washington's NFL team change its name from the Commanders back to the Redskins, a name that was considered offensive to Native Americans. Predictably, to Trump's stated delight, an internet uproar ensued.
It's a return to the president's favorite rebranding strategy, one well-used around the world and throughout history. Powers-that-be rename something — a body of water, a mountain in Alaska, St. Petersburg, Istanbul, Mumbai, various places in Israel after 1948 — in line with 'current' political and cultural views. Using names to tell a leader's own version of the nation's story is a perk of power that Trump is far from the first to enjoy.
A name, after all, defines identity and even reality because it is connected to the verb 'to be,' says one brand strategist.
'A parent naming a child, a founder naming a company, a president naming a place ... in each example, we can see the relationship of power,' Shannon Murphy, who runs Nameistry, a naming agency that works with companies and entrepreneurs to develop brand identities, said in an email. 'Naming gives you control.'
Trump reignited a debate on football and American identity
In Trump's case, reviving the debate over the Washington football team's name had the added effect of distraction.
'My statement on the Washington Redskins has totally blown up, but only in a very positive way,' he wrote on his social media platform, adding a threat to derail the team's deal for a new stadium if it resisted.
In fact, part of the reaction came from people noting that Trump's proposed renaming came as he struggled to move past a rebellion among his supporters over the administration's refusal to release much-hyped records in Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking investigation. Over about two weeks, Trump had cycled through many tactics — downplaying the issue, blaming others, scolding a reporter, insulting his own supporters, suing the Wall Street Journal and finally authorizing the Justice Department to try to unseal grand jury transcripts.
Trump's demand that the NFL and the District of Columbia change the team's name back to a dictionary definition of a slur against Native Americans reignited a brawl in miniature over race, history and the American identity.
Trump's reelection itself can be seen as a response to the nation's reckoning with its racial history after the 2020 police killing of George Floyd. That year, Americans elected Democratic President Joe Biden, who championed diversity. During his term, Washington's football team became first the Washington Football Team, then the Commanders, at a widely estimated cost in the tens of millions of dollars. And in 2021, The Cleveland Indians became the Cleveland Guardians.
In 2025, Trump has ordered a halt to diversity, equity and inclusion programs through the federal government, universities and schools, despite legal challenges. And he wants the Commanders' name changed back, though it's unclear if he has the authority to restrict the nearly $4 billion project.
Is Trump's 'Redskins' push a distraction or a power play?
What's clear is that names carry great power where business, national identity, race, history and culture intersect.
Trump has had great success for decades branding everything from buildings he named after himself to the Gulf between Mexico, Cuba and the United States to his political opponents and people he simply doesn't like. Exhibit A: Florida's governor, dubbed by Trump 'Meatball Ron' DeSantis, who challenged him for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
And Trump is not the first leader to use monikers and nicknames — branding, really — to try to define reality and the people who populate it. Naming was a key tool of colonization that modern-day countries are still trying to dislodge. 'Naming,' notes one expert, 'is never neutral.'
'To name is to collapse infinite complexity into a manageable symbol, and in that compression, whole worlds are won or lost,' linguist Norazha Paiman wrote last month on Medium.
'When the British renamed places throughout India or Africa, they weren't just updating maps,' Paiman wrote. 'They were restructuring the conceptual frameworks through which people could relate to their own territories.'
This is not Trump's first rebranding push
Trump's order to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America is perhaps the best-known result of Executive Order 14172, titled 'Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness.'
The renaming sent mapmakers, search engines and others into a flurry over whether to change the name. And it set off a legal dispute with The Associated Press over First Amendment freedoms that is still winding through the courts. The news outlet's access to events in the Oval Office and Air Force One was cut back starting in February after the AP said it would continue referring to the Gulf of Mexico in its copy, while noting Trump's wishes that it instead be renamed the Gulf of America.
It's unclear if Trump's name will stick universally — or go the way of 'freedom fries,' a brief attempt by some in the George W. Bush-era GOP to rebrand french fries after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
But there's evidence that at least for business in some places, the 'Gulf of America' terminology has staying power. Chevron's earnings statements of late have referred to the Gulf of America, because 'that's the position of the U.S. government now,' CEO Mike Wirth said during a Jan. 31 call with investors.
And along the Gulf Coast in Republican Louisiana, leaders of the state's seafood industry call the body of water the Gulf of America, in part, because putting that slogan on local products might help beat back the influx of foreign shrimp flooding American markets, the Louisiana Illuminator news outlet reported.
Renaming is a bipartisan endeavor
The racial reckoning inspired by Floyd's killing rippled across the cultural landscape.
Quaker retired the Aunt Jemima brand after it had been served up at America's breakfast tables for 131 years, saying it recognized that the character's origins were 'based on a racial stereotype.' Eskimo Pies became Edy's. The Grammy-winning country band Lady Antebellum changed its name to Lady A, saying they were regretful and embarrassed that their former moniker was associated with slavery.
And Trump didn't start the fight over football. Democratic President Barack Obama, in fact, told The Associated Press in 2013 that he would 'think about changing' the name of the Washington Redskins if he owned the team.
Trump soon after posted to Twitter: 'President should not be telling the Washington Redskins to change their name-our country has far bigger problems! FOCUS on them, not nonsense.'
Fast-forward to July 20, 2025, when Trump posted that the Washington Commanders should change their name back to the Redskins.
'Times,' the president wrote, 'are different now.'
___
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
9 minutes ago
- Yahoo
City fines Montreal church for hosting MAGA-affiliated singer Sean Feucht concert
MONTRÉAL — The City of Montreal has fined a local church $2,500 for hosting a concert Friday night by the U.S.-based Christian musician Sean Feucht. The city says the church did not have a permit to organize the concert, which it says ran counter to Montreal's values of inclusion, solidarity and respect. Officials have cancelled Feucht's scheduled concerts in several Canadian cities in recent days, including Halifax, Charlottetown and Quebec City. Feucht has spoken out against "gender ideology," abortion and the LGBTQ+ community and his religious and political views have grabbed the attention of U.S. President Donald Trump's administration. Montreal police arrested a 38-year-old man during a protest Friday night outside the church. They also say a smoke bomb was set off inside the church during Feucht's performance. This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 26, 2025. The Canadian Press Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
9 minutes ago
- Yahoo
US migrant raids spark boom for private detention providers
Donald Trump's promise to carry out the largest deportation operation in US history has appalled some Americans. But others are cashing in on the boom in demand for private detention centers. Migrants captured by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents need to be temporarily housed in places like the facility being readied in California City, prior to deportation. "When you talk to the majority of residents here, they have a favorable perspective on it," said Marquette Hawkins, mayor of the hardscrabble settlement of 15,000 people, 100 miles (160 kilometres) north of Los Angeles. "They look at the economic impact, right?" California City is to be home to a sprawling detention center that will be operated by CoreCivic, one of the largest companies in the private detention sector. The company, which declined AFP requests for an interview, says the facility would generate around 500 jobs, and funnel $2 million in tax revenue to the city. "Many of our residents have already been hired out there to work in that facility," Hawkins told AFP. "Any revenue source that is going to assist the town in rebuilding itself, rebranding itself, is going to be seen as a plus," he said. - Boom - Trump's ramped-up immigration arrests, like those that provoked protests in Los Angeles, saw a record 60,000 people in detention in June, according to ICE figures. Those same figures show the vast majority have no conviction, despite the president's election campaign promises to go after hardened criminals. More than 80 percent of detainees are in facilities run by the private sector, according to the TRAC project at Syracuse University. And with Washington's directive to triple the number of daily arrests -- and $45 billion earmarked for new detention centers -- the sector is looking at an unprecedented boom. "Never in our 42-year company history have we had so much activity and demand for our services as we are seeing right now," Damon Hininger, executive director of CoreCivic, said in a May call with investors. When Trump took office in January, some 107 centers were operating. The number now hovers around 200. For Democratic politicians, this proliferation is intentional. "Private prison companies are profiting from human suffering, and Republicans are allowing them to get away with it," Congresswoman Norma Torres told reporters outside a detention center in the southern California city of Adelanto. At the start of the year, there were three people detained there; there are now hundreds, each one of them attracting a daily stipend of taxpayer cash for the operator. Torres was refused permission to visit the facility, run by the privately owned GEO Group, because she had not given seven days' notice, she said. "Denying members of Congress access to private detention facilities like Adelanto isn't just disrespectful, it is dangerous, it is illegal, and it is a desperate attempt to hide the abuse happening behind these walls," she said. "We've heard the horrifying stories of detainees being violently arrested, denied basic medical care, isolated for days, and left injured without treatment," she added. Kristen Hunsberger, a staff attorney at the Law Center for Immigrant Advocates, said one client complained of having to wait "six or seven hours to get clean water." It is "not sanitary and certainly not... in compliance with just basic human rights." Hunsberger, who spends hours on the road going from one center to another to locate her clients, says many have been denied access to legal counsel, a constitutional right in the United States. Both GEO and ICE have denied allegations of mistreatment at the detention centers. "Claims there is overcrowding or subprime conditions in ICE facilities are categorically FALSE," said Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security. "All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers." - 'Strategy' - But some relatives of detainees tell a different story. Alejandra Morales, an American citizen, said her undocumented husband was detained incommunicado for five days in Los Angeles before being transferred to Adelanto. In the Los Angeles facility, "they don't even let them brush their teeth, they don't let them bathe, nothing. They have them all sleeping on the floor, in a cell, all together," she said. Hunsberger said that for detainees and their relatives, the treatment appears to be deliberate. "They're starting to feel that this is a strategy to wear people down, to have them in these inhumane conditions, and then pressure them to sign something where they could then agree to being deported," she said. pr/hg/ksb
USA Today
10 minutes ago
- USA Today
US diplomats asked if non-Whites qualify for Trump refugee program for South Africans
WASHINGTON, July 25 (Reuters) - In early July, the top official at the U.S. embassy in South Africa reached out to Washington asking for clarification on a contentious U.S. policy: could non-Whites apply for a refugee program geared toward white South Africans if they met other requirements? President Donald Trump's February executive order establishing the program specified that it was for "Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination," referring to an ethnic group descended mostly from Dutch settlers. In a diplomatic cable sent July 8, embassy Charge d'Affairs David Greene asked whether the embassy could process claims from other minority groups claiming race-based discrimination such as "coloured" South Africans who speak Afrikaans. In South Africa the term coloured refers to mixed-raced people, a classification created by the apartheid regime still in use today. The answer came back days later in an email from Spencer Chretien, the highest-ranking official in the State Department's refugee and migration bureau, saying the program is intended for White people. Reuters was unable to independently verify the precise language in the email which was described to the news agency by three sources familiar with its contents. The State Department, responding to a request for comment on July 18, did not specifically comment on the email or the cable but described the scope of the policy as wider than the guidance in Chretien's email. The department said U.S. policy is to consider both Afrikaners and other racial minorities for resettlement, echoing guidance posted on its website in May saying that applicants "must be of Afrikaner ethnicity or be a member of a racial minority in South Africa." Chretien declined to comment through a State Department spokesperson. Greene did not respond to Reuters requests for comment. The internal back-and-forth between the embassy and the State Department - which hasn't been previously reported - illustrates the confusion in how to implement a policy designed to help White Afrikaners in a racially diverse country that includes mixed-race people who speak Afrikaans, as well as Whites who speak English. So far the State Department has resettled 88 South Africans under the program, including the initial group of 59 who arrived in May. Another 15 are expected to arrive by the end of August, one of the sources said. Trump, a Republican who recaptured the White House pledging a wide-ranging immigration crackdown, placed an indefinite freeze on refugee admissions from around the world after taking office, saying the U.S. would only admit refugees who "can fully and appropriately assimilate." Weeks later, he issued an executive order that called for the U.S. to resettle Afrikaners, describing them as victims of "violence against racially disfavored landowners," allegations that echoed far-right claims but which have been contested by South Africa's government. Since the executive order, U.S. diplomats working to implement the program have been deliberating internally about which racial groups could be considered eligible, one of the sources said. In the July 8 cable, Greene laid out a summary of the different ethnic and racial groups in the country before seeking guidance on eligibility. In addition to Afrikaners and mixed-race South Africans, Greene mentioned indigenous South Africans known as the Khoisan people. He said that members of the Jewish community had also expressed interest, but that in South Africa they are considered a religious minority and not a racial group. "In the absence of other guidance, [the U.S. embassy] intends to give consideration to well-founded claims of persecution based on race for other racial minorities," Greene wrote. At least one family identified as "coloured" has already traveled to the U.S. as refugees, two people familiar with the matter said. The cable forced the administration to clarify its position on whether the policy is for Whites only, and if it does include other aggrieved minorities, who would qualify, two of the people familiar with the matter said. Chretien, a conservative who wrote op-eds promoting the Heritage Foundation's "Project 2025" plan to overhaul the federal government, is the senior official at the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. During the apartheid era, which ended with the first democratic elections in 1994, South Africa maintained a racially segregated society with separate schools, neighborhoods and public facilities for people classified as Black, coloured, White or Asian. Blacks make up 81% of South Africa's population, according to 2022 census data. Coloured South Africans make up 8%, and Indians 3%. Afrikaners and other White South Africans constitute 7% of the population but own three-quarters of the privately held land in the country. When asked about the program in May, Trump said he was not giving Afrikaners preferential treatment because they are White. "They happen to be White, but whether they are White or Black makes no difference to me," he said. In response to a request for comment, a White House official said the administration's policy reflected Trump's executive order. 'We will prioritize refugee admissions for South African citizens, including Afrikaners and other racial minorities in South Africa, who have been targeted by the discriminatory laws of the South African government," the official said. The assertion that minority White South Africans face discrimination from the Black majority has spread in far-right circles for years and been echoed by White South African-born Elon Musk, a U.S. citizen who served as a top White House aide during the first four months of Trump's administration. The South African government has rejected the allegations of persecution and a "White genocide." There is no evidence to back up claims of widespread, race-based attacks in the country. During a combative Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in May, Trump showed a printed image of a Reuters video taken in the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of what he falsely presented as evidence of mass killings of White South Africans. The South African Chamber of Commerce said earlier this year that 67,000 people were interested in the program. (Reporting by Ted Hesson and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Jonathan Landay in Washington; Editing by Don Durfee and Michael Learmonth)
