Historical past, it has been mentioned, is written by the winners. President Donald Trump is working that lever of energy — once more.
This time, he is insisting that Washington’s NFL staff change its identify from the Commanders again to the Redskins, a reputation that was thought of offensive to Native Americans. Predictably, to Trump’s said delight, an web uproar ensued.
It is a return to the president’s favourite rebranding technique, one well-used around the globe and all through historical past. Powers-that-be rename one thing — a physique of water, a mountain in Alaska, St. Petersburg, Istanbul, Mumbai, varied locations in Israel after 1948 — according to “present” political and cultural views. Utilizing names to inform a pacesetter’s personal model of the nation’s story is a perk of energy that Trump is far from the first to take pleasure in.
A reputation, in spite of everything, defines identification and even actuality as a result of it’s related to the verb “to be,“ says one model strategist.
“A guardian naming a baby, a founder naming an organization, a president naming a spot … in every instance, we are able to see the connection of energy,” Shannon Murphy, who runs Nameistry, a naming company that works with firms and entrepreneurs to develop model identities, mentioned in an e-mail. “Naming provides you management.”
Trump reignited a debate on soccer and American identification
In Trump’s case, reviving the talk over the Washington soccer staff’s identify had the added impact of distraction.
“My assertion on the Washington Redskins has completely blown up, however solely in a really constructive means,” he wrote on his social media platform, including a menace to derail the staff’s deal for a brand new stadium if it resisted.
The truth is, a part of the response got here from folks noting that Trump’s proposed renaming got here as he struggled to maneuver previous a rebellion among his supporters over the administration’s refusal to launch much-hyped records in Jeffrey Epstein’s intercourse trafficking investigation. Over about two weeks, Trump had cycled by way of many ways — downplaying the difficulty, blaming others, scolding a reporter, insulting his own supporters, suing the Wall Street Journal and at last authorizing the Justice Division to try to unseal grand jury transcripts.
Trump’s demand that the NFL and the District of Columbia change the staff’s identify again to a dictionary definition of a slur against Native Americans reignited a brawl in miniature over race, historical past and the American identification.
Trump’s reelection itself will be seen as a response to the nation’s reckoning with its racial historical past after the 2020 police killing of George Floyd. That yr, People elected Democratic President Joe Biden, who championed range. Throughout his time period, Washington’s soccer staff turned first the Washington Soccer Group, then the Commanders, at a extensively estimated value within the tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars}. And in 2021, The Cleveland Indians turned the Cleveland Guardians.
In 2025, Trump has ordered a halt to range, fairness and inclusion applications by way of the federal authorities, universities and schools, regardless of legal challenges. And he wants the Commanders’ name changed back, although it is unclear if he has the authority to limit the nearly $4 billion project.
Is Trump’s ‘Redskins’ push a distraction or an influence play?
What’s clear is that names carry nice energy the place enterprise, nationwide identification, race, historical past and tradition intersect.
Trump has had nice success for many years branding every part from buildings he named after himself to the Gulf between Mexico, Cuba and america to his political opponents and folks he merely does not 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 chief to make use of monikers and nicknames — branding, actually — to attempt to outline actuality and the individuals who populate it. Naming was a key device of colonization that modern-day nations are nonetheless attempting to dislodge. “Naming,” notes one professional, “isn’t impartial.”
“To call is to break down infinite complexity right into a manageable image, and in that compression, entire worlds are received or misplaced,“ linguist Norazha Paiman wrote final month on Medium.
”When the British renamed locations all through India or Africa, they weren’t simply updating maps,” Paiman wrote. “They have been restructuring the conceptual frameworks by way of which individuals might relate to their very own territories.”
This isn’t Trump’s first rebranding push
Trump’s order to rename the Gulf of Mexico because the Gulf of America is probably the best-known results of Govt Order 14172, titled “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness.”
The renaming despatched mapmakers, serps and others right into a flurry over whether or not to vary the identify. And it set off a authorized dispute with The Related Press over First Modification freedoms that’s still winding through the courts. The information outlet’s access to occasions within the Oval Workplace and Air Pressure One was cut back starting in February after the AP said it might proceed referring to the Gulf of Mexico in its copy, whereas noting Trump’s needs that it as an alternative be renamed the Gulf of America.
It is unclear if Trump’s identify will stick universally — or go the way in which of “freedom fries,” a quick try by some within the George W. Bush-era GOP to rebrand french fries after the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults.
However there’s proof that at the least for enterprise in some locations, the “Gulf of America” terminology has endurance. Chevron’s earnings statements of late have referred to the Gulf of America, as a result of “that is the place of the U.S. authorities now,” CEO Mike Wirth mentioned throughout a Jan. 31 name with traders.
And alongside the Gulf Coast in Republican Louisiana, leaders of the state’s seafood business name the physique of water the Gulf of America, partially, as a result of placing that slogan on native merchandise may assist beat again the inflow of overseas shrimp flooding American markets, the Louisiana Illuminator information outlet reported.
Renaming is a bipartisan endeavor
The racial reckoning impressed by Floyd’s killing rippled throughout the cultural panorama.
Quaker retired the Aunt Jemima brand after it had been served up at America’s breakfast tables for 131 years, saying it acknowledged that the character’s origins have been “based mostly on a racial stereotype.” Eskimo Pies became Edy’s. The Grammy-winning nation band Lady Antebellum changed its name to Lady A, saying they have been regretful and embarrassed that their former moniker was related to slavery.
And Trump did not begin the struggle over soccer. Democratic President Barack Obama, actually, told The Associated Press in 2013 that he would “take into consideration altering” the identify of the Washington Redskins if he owned the staff.
Trump quickly after posted to Twitter: “President shouldn’t be telling the Washington Redskins to vary their name-our nation has far greater issues! FOCUS on them, not nonsense.”
Quick-forward to July 20, 2025, when Trump posted that the Washington Commanders ought to change their identify again to the Redskins.
“Occasions,” the president wrote, “are totally different now.”
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