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Or at least he used to be. In his latest attempt to roll back woke, President Donald Trump is demanding that the NFL’s Washington Commanders change their team name back to their old, racist name. I won’t repeat the name here, but I’ll give you some hints: it was the favourite NFL team of former ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Mayor Rob Ford, and it rhymes with “Washington Bread Bins.â€� In a post on Truth Social, the President claimed that if the team doesn’t comply, he’ll block the team’s efforts to build a new stadium in D.C. proper (the team currently hosts home games in Landover, Maryland, just east of the U.S. capital).

Practically speaking, there’s relatively little Trump can do to stop the stadium, which has already been approved by D.C.’s mayor, and council. Yes, perhaps there is some obscure legal wrangling he could indulge to block it. But this is the sort of stuff that Trump tends to get bored with after about a week or so. Let’s bracket that and get to the heart of the claim, such as it is.

Trump, and others, allege that the Commanders’ name change was just some politically correct ploy. Indeed, the team did change its name around 2020, while the country was engaged in a broader reckoning around racism. He also claims that America’s indigenous population (he doesn’t call them that, of course) isn’t actually offended by the name. There’s some truth to that, depending who you ask. One poll showed that a majority aren’t bothered by it. Another showed that more than 50 per cent were. The idea is that these sorts of changes usually appease people from outside the minority group ostensibly targeted by the ostensibly offensive name.

I recently rewatched “Crumb,” director Terry Zwigoff’s brilliant, uneasy documentary of American cartoonist Robert Crumb. At one point, the artist is asked if anyone has ever registered offence at his caricatured depiction of Black people. He responds something like, “Yeah. But only white liberals.â€� Maybe that’s entirely true (though I sort of doubt it). And if it were: so what? Should white people, and liberals, not be offended by racism, or slurs, because they don’t affect them directly? Do they have no right to object?

Certainly Trump, and a great many Republicans looking to Make America Slurs-Filled Again don’t object. Their priorities are curious. In the case of the NFL team, is it really more valuable to be able to say a slur than it is to honour the legacy of Commander Washington by rooting for a team named after him?

For fans of the squad — 0who voted on the Commanders name, by the way — now is a horrible time to look backward. A long-suffering franchise, the Commanders are now one of the hottest teams in the league, buoyed by the impressive play of rookie QB Jayden Daniels. In their first year with Daniels under centre, Washington made it to the NFC Championship game for the first time since 1992. Fans new and old are embracing the star quarterback, the team, and even the new name. Heck, they’re the direct divisional rivals of my beloved Philadelphia Eagles and even I find myself rooting for them!

Of course, as with most Trump bluster, all this un-renaming is just another distraction. A distraction from what, you may ask? Well, I don’t really want to get into the particulars here, but I’ll give you some hints: it’s about the DOJ’s release of some potentially incriminating files, about a guy whose name rhymes with “Jeffrey Breadstein.�