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Over the weekend, Donald Trump gave an ultimatum to Washington’s NFL team: Reinstate the team’s old, racist name caricaturizing Indigenous people — the Redskins — or risk losing out on a new stadium in D.C.
This authoritarian threat, in which Trump also pressed for a name change by the Cleveland Guardians — who were formerly known as the Indians and used a racist caricature for their mascot — stepped on the plans of his own party. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., has been using Congress’ authority over laws in the nation’s capital to pressure the D.C. Council into hastily approving a new stadium.
But this latest threat via Truth Social fits a trend of Trump aiming to impose his political will on American sports. Though members of the MAGA movement frequently whined about what they claimed was an inappropriate merger of sports and politics nearly a decade ago, when NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and other pro athletes protested systemic racism, today’s MAGA movement firmly backs a president in Trump who is dead-set on ensuring that sports leagues in the U.S. reflect his party’s politics.
He has used the power of the White House to wage an antiscientific and bigoted war on trans athletes’ participation in sports — a crusade purportedly in defense of women’s sports despite the fact that it’s Trump’s administration putting women’s athletic programs in danger.
He has pressured Major League Baseball to open up its Hall of Fame to previously banned pariahs such as Pete Rose and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson.
His administration’s bigotry-fueled raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have instilled fear at sporting events popular among Latinos — for example, at a Los Angeles Dodgers game and the FIFA Club World Cup soccer tournament.
He has seemingly sought to use the MAGA-friendly Ultimate Fighting Championship as a public relations extension of his White House, through his controversial and ethically questionable promotion of the UFC at his authoritarian-style military parade in June and his proposed plan to host a UFC fight on the White House grounds next year for America’s 250th birthday.
He’s also reportedly planning to sign an executive order related to name, image and likeness rules in college athletics — at the urging of Sen. Tommy Tuberville, an Alabama Republican who coached football at Auburn University, and former University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban — that some fear could empower uber-wealthy universities and undercut student-athletes’ ability to maximize their profits while their sports programs make money off them.
Taking these things into account, it seems abundantly clear that MAGA world wasn’t truly pining for a separation of sports and politics over all these years. To the contrary, it appears they were just longing for a dictatorial figure willing to do their bidding. Because Trump is placing his thumb on the scale to impose his toxic politics on American sports leagues, and many in MAGA world clearly don’t mind.