Latest news with #Redskins
Los Angeles Times
9 hours ago
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Cane sugar Coke? Bringing back the Redskins? Trump's little gripes serve a larger purpose
With the Jeffrey Epstein controversy still dogging him, President Trump has embraced his favorite distraction: the culture wars. It began when he announced that Coca-Cola was switching to cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. Coke responded with a statement that basically boiled down to: 'Wait, what?' — before announcing the company would release a Trump-approved version of the famous cola. Now, you might think decisions like these should be left up to the companies. After all, it's none of the government's business, and Republicans supposedly believe in free markets. But no! Trump followed up by threatening to block a new stadium for Washington's NFL team unless it changed its name back to the Redskins. He also demanded that Cleveland's baseball team go back to being called the Indians. At first glance, this seems like a ridiculous ploy to distract us from Epstein. And sure, that's part of the story. But here's what Trump understands: A lot of Americans feel like somebody came along and stole all their cool stuff — iconic team names, high-hold hair spray, military bases named after Confederate generals — and replaced them with soulless, modern stuff. 'Guardians,' 'low-flow shower heads,' 'Fort Liberty.' We might laugh at his trivial Coke crusade, but sports teams evoke more primal emotions. You can drink a Coke today and a Pepsi tomorrow. But you can't root for the Indians on Monday and the Detroit Tigers on Tuesday. Not unless you're a psychopath — or someone who wants to get punched in a bar. Team loyalty matters. Trump gets this. When I was a kid, the Redskins won three Super Bowls. There were songs like 'Hail to the Redskins,' team heroes (like John Riggins, Doug Williams and coach Joe Gibbs), and all manner of burgundy and gold merch. It wasn't just a team. It was part of our identity — as well as an excuse to spend time together (even as decades passed without another Super Bowl run). Then one day: poof. Goodbye Redskins. Now imagine that same sense of loss in an already deracinated place like the Rust Belt, where the ball club is a big part of the city's identity, and where they already closed Dad's factory and then had the gall to take his boyhood team's name too. This isn't really about names. It's about nostalgia. Tradition. Identity. It's about trying to keep a tenuous grip on a world you can still recognize, while everything else dissolves into a place where even choosing a bathroom is a political statement. Now, is the name Redskins offensive? Sure. Even though a 2016 Washington Post poll found that 9 out of 10 Native Americans weren't offended, you'd be hard-pressed to defend it on the merits. But the Indians? Come on. Just lose the Chief Wahoo cartoon. This isn't rocket science. So is Trump onto something when it comes to the real-world backlash to overwrought political correctness? Yes. But he's also profiting politically off of people pining for a world that never really existed. I thought about this last fall when Trump worked the fry station and drive-through window at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania. At first, it seemed like just another stunt to troll Kamala Harris (who said she once worked for McDonald's). But then I saw him in that red apron with the yellow piping — still wearing his red tie, of course — and thought: This is Rockwell. This image evokes a time when a white guy of a certain age could sling burgers, go home to his wife and kids, mow his middle-class lawn, crack open a Coca-Cola, and watch the Redskins and the Cowboys. Whether Trump consciously appreciates the power of this imagery, I don't know. But he clearly understands that there is power in yearning, that culture is more primordial than American politics and that refusing to exploit these forces (out of some sense of propriety) would be a sucker's move. To some degree, he's been playing this game for years — think energy efficient lightbulbs, paper straws and his criticism over Apple's decision to get rid of the iPhone home button. If something new comes along, Trump is already up there stoking cultural outrage, blaming the 'woke' left and demanding somebody bring him a Diet Coke. It's what he does. But here's why this actually matters: These little skirmishes don't just distract from the bigger, more dangerous stuff — they enable it. Even as he accuses former President Obama of treason (which is absurd and dangerous), Trump's bond with his supporters is reinforced by these small, almost laughable grievances. He makes them feel seen, defended and nostalgic for a world that (to them, at least) made more sense. That emotional connection with his base is what allows Trump to tell bigger lies and launch bolder attacks without losing them. Coke and the Redskins may seem trivial. But they're the sugar that helps the poison go down. Matt K. Lewis is the author of 'Filthy Rich Politicians' and 'Too Dumb to Fail.'
New York Times
a day ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Trump Has a Terrible Idea for American Sports Teams
On Sunday, President Trump, still on the ropes because of the controversy over the government's Jeffrey Epstein files, ventured a distraction. With all the usual exclamation points and eccentric capitalization, he sounded the alarm on an issue a reader might have mistaken for a national crisis: the names of professional sports franchises. In particular those franchises that had cast off names that no longer felt culturally appropriate: the Washington Commanders, formerly the Redskins, and the Cleveland Guardians, formerly the Indians. 'The Washington 'Whatever's' should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team. There is a big clamoring for this. Likewise, the Cleveland Indians, one of the six original baseball teams,' — by the way, it wasn't — 'with a storied past. Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them.' With typical subtlety, Trump concluded, 'OWNERS, GET IT DONE!!!' The controversy dates back more than a half-century. It was formalized in 1968, when the National Congress of American Indians embarked on a campaign to fight negative stereotypes of native people in American culture. For a while, however, the evidence on the word 'redskin' seemed equivocal. Polls by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, in 2004, and again by The Washington Post, in 2016, reported that a vast majority of actual Native Americans had no problem with the term. Was the whole thing just a politically correct tempest in a teapot, an effort to fix something that wasn't actually a problem? In 2020, a new poll was conducted. This one asked respondents for more finely grained responses and gave them more opportunity to consider their answers. The outcome was very different: Almost half of 1,000 Native Americans surveyed indeed found the term 'Redskin' to be offensive. Organized college athletics had long since forsworn team mascots that were based on caricatures of Indians. Amid the national climate of racial reckoning that George Floyd's death and the Black Lives Matter movement brought on, the Washington football franchise announced it would be changing its name. When Trump claims that 'our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen,' there is no reason to wonder if he commissioned his own secret polling. But you don't need a poll to understand why he's wrong. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Kuwait Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Kuwait Times
Native American groups slam Trump call to bring back Redskins name
'These mascots and names do not honor Native Peoples - they reduce us to caricatures' WASHINGTON: Two Native American groups on Monday condemned US President Donald Trump's threat to block a new football stadium in Washington, DC, unless the local NFL team restores its old and controversial Redskins name. In Sunday posts on his Truth Social platform, Trump said there was 'a big clamoring' for the team, which has been called the Commanders since 2022, to revert to its former name and that 'our great Indian people' want it to happen. Trump also urged Major League Baseball's Cleveland Guardians, who changed their name from Indians in 2021, to follow suit. But some Native American groups slammed Trump for pushing for a return to what they called harmful names. 'These mascots and names do not honor Native Peoples - they reduce us to caricatures,' the Association on American Indian Affairs said in a statement. 'Our diverse Peoples and cultures are not relics of the past or mascots for entertainment. Native Nations are sovereign, contemporary cultures who deserve respect and self-determination, not misrepresentation.' After decades of criticism that the name was a racial slur, the Washington NFL team in July 2020 retired the Redskins name and logo - featuring the profile of a red-faced Native American with feathers in his hair - that had been in place since 1933. The National Congress of American Indians said it opposes any effort to revive what it called racist mascots that demean Indigenous communities, calling it 'an affront to Tribal sovereignty.' 'For seventy-five years, NCAI has held an unbroken voice: Imagery and fan behaviors that mock, demean, and dehumanize Native people have no place in modern society,' NCAI President Mark Macarro said in a statement. Because Congress retains oversight of DC under its home-rule law, Trump could try to influence federal funding or approvals tied to the stadium, but he lacks direct authority to block it. Congress, controlled by Trump's Republicans, also has the power to override decisions by the Democratic-dominated Washington, DC, City Council, though it rarely exercises this authority. The team, which has been in suburban Landover, Maryland, since 1997, reached an agreement with the District of Columbia government in April to return to the city with a new stadium expected to open in 2030. The White House did not respond to a request for further comment on Trump's post. The Commanders and NFL also did not respond to requests for comment. While some groups oppose the Commanders returning to the former name, the Native American Guardians Association said it supported Trump's desire to bring back the Redskins name. 'The Native American Guardians Association stands with the President of the United States in the call to return common sense and sanity back to our nation,' the group said in a statement. 'Virtually all Americans, to include American Indians, are fed up with cancel culture.' The Commanders have won three Super Bowls and are one of the NFL's marquee franchises, ranked by Forbes last year as the league's 10th most valuable franchise at $6.3 billion. Many American professional and collegiate sports teams have Native American-themed names. Major League Baseball's Atlanta Braves, the National Hockey League's Chicago Blackhawks and NFL's Kansas City Chiefs have said they have no plans to change their names. – Reuters
Fox News
2 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
DC official weighs in on Trump's push to have Commanders change nickname back to Redskins
President Donald Trump threw a curveball into the NFL world over the weekend when he threatened to put the Washington Commanders' RFK Stadium site in jeopardy if they didn't change its name back to the Redskins. Phil Mendelson, the Washington, D.C., Council chairman, suggested to 106.7 The Fan in D.C. on the "Grant & Danny" show he would have "no problem" with a potential name change. "He suggested the past DC opposition of the team moving back into the city while named Redskins had more to do with Dan Snyder than the name," radio host Grant Paulsen wrote about Mendelson. "Suggested he would have no problem with DC welcoming the team back with the name Redskins now." It appeared to be the latest nod of support for the move since Trump fired off two Truth Social posts over the weekend about the nickname. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner, who played for the Redskins, backed the move on Sunday. "The Washington 'Whatever's' should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team. There is a big clamoring for this," Trump wrote first. "Likewise, the Cleveland Indians, one of the six original baseball teams, with a storied past. "Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them. Times are different now than they were three or four years ago. We are a Country of passion and common sense. OWNERS, GET IT DONE!!!" Then, he threatened to put the Commanders' deal to take over the old RFK Stadium site in jeopardy if they didn't revert to the name. "My statement on the Washington Redskins has totally blown up, but only in a very positive way," Trump wrote in a second Truth Social post. "I may put a restriction on them that if they don't change the name back to the original 'Washington Redskins,' and get rid of the ridiculous moniker, 'Washington Commanders,' I won't make a deal for them to build a Stadium in Washington. The Team would be much more valuable, and the Deal would be more exciting for everyone." Daniel Snyder changed Washington's team name from the Washington Redskins to the Washington Football Team before the start of the 2020 season amid a summer of racial tensions. The team eventually became the Washington Commanders, and Snyder sold the team to Josh Harris. Harris said on Fox News Channel's "Special Report" in April that the team would not bring back the Redskins name even with plans to build a new stadium in Washington, D.C. "The Commanders' name actually has taken on an amazing kind of element in our building," Harris responded to Bret Baier's question about the Redskins name coming back as part of this new stadium deal. "So, the people that certain types of players that are tough, that love football, are delegated Commanders and Jayden [Daniels], for example, is a Commander, and they're ranked. "And, you know, the business staff has gotten into it, and obviously, we're in a military city here. There's more military personnel than anywhere else, so we're kind of moving forward with the Commanders name, excited about that, and not looking back."
NDTV
2 days ago
- Politics
- NDTV
Trump Likes Renaming Things. He's Not The First To Deploy That Perk Of Power
History, it has been said, is written by the winners. President Donald Trump is working that lever of power - again. 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." 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. 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 colonisation 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." 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 US 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. 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 recognised 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."
