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President Donald Trump seems to delight in stirring public controversy and especially within the city limits of the District of Columbia. Lately he’s been threatening to withhold federal approvals to build a new Washington football stadium if the city’s NFL team doesn’t restore the “Redskins” name it dropped in 2020. The president shouldn’t be trying to dictate the names of organizations in sports or any other industry. But he’s not the only football fan who would welcome a change, and the team’s owners might benefit from a re-brand. The team’s 2020 renaming was the signature achievement of the movement to retire sports mascots referring to Native Americans.
Activists called such names insulting while others argued the monikers were meant to evoke virtues such as bravery and fortitude. The activists succeeded in Washington and elsewhere but they never entirely won over the public. A new Economist/YouGov poll finds that 45% of U.S. adults still prefer the name Washington Redskins, compared with just 35% who prefer the current name, Washington Commanders, and 20% who say they’re not sure. Responses are similar for another franchise that changed its name not long after the Washington renaming. The survey finds that 47% of U.S. adults prefer the
name Indians for Cleveland’s Major League Baseball team, compared with just 35% who prefer the current name, Cleveland Guardians, and 18% who say they’re not sure. While there is a partisan and philosophical divide on the question, with Republicans much more likely than Democrats to favor the old names, Redskins is also the choice of 20% of people who voted for Kamala Harris in 2024. A similar 22% of Harris voters prefer the retired Indians name for Cleveland’s baseball team. The limited support for the new names isn’t surprising and may actually represent progress for the people who set out to police political incorrectness in athletics. Back in 2016, John Woodrow Cox, Scott Clement and Theresa Vargas reported for the Washington Post:
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