by Paul Teetor
President Donald “I’m in charge of everything” Trump has done it again.
He has injected himself into the previously settled question of the Washington Commanders not-so-new team name. It used to be the Washington Redskins, which many people found offensive and considered a racist slur against Native Americans.
Not Trump.
He wants to bring it back in all its sorry shame and racist insult.
For years, the Redskins had a reputation as the most reactionary team in the National Football League. Thanks to notoriously racist owner, George Preston Marshall, they did not hire a black player until 1962, making them the last NFL Team to have a black player.
But by 2020 the Washington Redskins had a new owner and were finally re-named due to intense and sustained criticism for using a racist term for their team’s name – as well as an equally offensive logo of an Indian chief. Thanks to pressure from Native American groups, sponsors, and some politicians the team initially became the too-bland-to-offend-anyone “Washington Football Team” before settling on the Capitol appropriate name “The Commanders” two years ago.
But Sunday night Trump was desperately looking for any distraction from the firestorm over his government’s failure to deliver on his promise to release the FBI files on his good friend, convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
So he suddenly waded back into the question of the football team’s name.
With all his 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 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,” — he’s factually wrong on this claim — “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!!!”
Despite all his bluster, I doubt even Trump himself would be comfortable using that controversial term to address another human being. Imagine him inviting a tribal leader to join him at some White House ceremony and introducing him as “my honored guest, a respected redskin.” At best, the term sounds like an artifact from a 1950’s John Wayne film. To most ears, it simply sounds like a racist slur.
But Trump, as is his wont, did more than just issue backwards-looking demands.
Instead of trying to make a moral case that going back to “The Redskins,” was the right thing to do – mainly because there is no moral case to be made — he issued his usual bombastic threats.
Trump knew that the Commanders have been working for three years on a $3.7 billion deal for a new stadium with the D.C. government – and that the deal is close to being signed.
The federal government has nothing to do with it. But Trump, who thinks he is in charge of everything, including sports, threatened that unless the team goes back to the old name he would use his power and influence to blow up the deal.
“I won’t make a deal for them to build a stadium in Washington,” Trump wrote. “The team would be much more valuable, and the Deal would be exciting for everyone.”
The Commanders new owner, Josh Harris, showed some rare political courage at a time when Congress and large universities like Columbia, major tech firms like Meta and legacy media like CBS and ABC are all capitulating to Trump’s wild threats and crazy demands.
Harris went on Fox News and answered Trump’s threats.
“We’re kind of moving forward with the Commanders name,” Harris said. “Excited about that — and not looking back.”
The bully-in-chief has yet to respond or follow through on his threats, and All Ball predicts that we won’t hear another word out of Trump on this subject. That is because on the day he made the threat, he posted on his own Truth Social network more than 80 times – on everything from Hillary Clinton’s emails to demanding that former President Barack Obama be arrested for treason to his successful campaign to get Coke to replace high fructose corn syrup with sugar.
Just think about that for a second: our commander-in-chief, the guy who controls the nuclear codes and is the only one who could order up a war like he orders up Big Macs, the 79-year-old guy who looks more and more bloated and worn out as the Epstein questions mount, spends his nights trolling liberals, spinning conspiracy theories and nursing his endless grievances — instead of making life better for all Americans.
That is a true case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
For those readers who are already preparing their emails accusing All Ball of having a bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, and advising sports columnists to stay in their lane, remember this: Trump injected himself once again into the world of sports, and this is most definitely a sports topic.
This is the same guy who jumped into the fray when NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee rather than honor the national anthem, called on NFL owners to tell protesting players to “get that son of a bitch off the field right now,” and uninvited Stephen Curry to the White House after the NBA star had already said he wouldn’t visit the White House to celebrate the Warriors NBA title.
So it’s more than appropriate for a sports columnist to comment on these issues. Indeed, it would be negligent to ignore them.
And for those who think it’s crazy for a President of the United States to be injecting himself into a debate over a pro football team’s name, know this: the hypocrite-in-chief agrees with you – when it’s convenient for him.
Back in 2013, then President Obama tweeted that if he were the Redskin’s owner, he would give serious thought to changing the team’s name to keep up with the times. No bluster, no demands, no threats — just a sincere plea for the Redskins to change their name and shed the last vestiges of their racist past.
In response, Trump – a mere reality show host at the time — tweeted back: “President should not be telling the Washington Redskins to change their name – our country has far bigger problems. FOCUS on them, not nonsense!”
Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com. ER
Thank you for a well written column. Unfortunately, the Washington Commanders are subject to the President’s whims. The stadium is located within the District of Columbia, and the Federal government has significant control over the District’s finances. The President can block a deal by exerting pressure on the District’s finances.