New pro-Trump ad targets Clinton's opposition to Redskins name
With two days remaining before the presidential election, a super PAC supporting Republican nominee Donald Trump is making an appeal to one of America’s largest voter demographics: football-watching dudes. Specifically, those who apparently still get very upset about the idea of changing the Washington Redskins’ name.
“Yeah, you thought you were safe, sitting in your recliner in your man cave, cold beer and a bag of chips,” a new ad attacking Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton begins, hitting every single beer-bro commercial mark. “You thought you’d escape politics by focusing on football. Wrong.”
Just so we’re clear: “politics in sports” doesn’t just encompass protests about the Redskins name and the national anthem, but also salutes to troops, military family reunions, mayors’ Super Bowl bets, and the like. But back to the ad, which makes its point with all the subtlety of a Von Miller hit:
“Hillary Clinton wants to mess up your football, too,” the ad continues.
Now, on the list of people who ruin football on any given Sunday, Hillary Clinton would rank well behind referees who blanket the field in flags, receivers who drop easy touchdown passes, quarterbacks who throw backbreaking interceptions, and third-down backs who vulture away touchdowns from your fantasy team. But outrage is outrage, however you can gin it up.
“Hillary wants to change the name of the Redskins,” the ad says, and sure enough, Clinton, like many other politicians, fans, and former players, has indicated she’d like to see the team’s name changed.
“I think it’s insensitive,” Clinton said two years ago, “and I think that there’s no reason for it to continue as the name of a team in our nation’s capital.”
“Honestly, I don’t think they should change the name, unless the owner wanted to,” Trump said last year, when he was already in the midst of a presidential run. He termed the idea of a name change “unnecessary political correctness.”
This ad seems a case of free-floating opposition tethered to a less-than-crucial cause. Interest in the name-change issue has cooled considerably ever since a Washington Post poll found that nine of 10 Native Americans had no problem with the name. Besides, it’s tough to imagine how a theoretical President Clinton could make the perennially underachieving Redskins any more hapless than they already are.
Of course, when you’re talking about ruining football, even if Clinton somehow changed the Redskins name (which she can’t), her record of wreckage wouldn’t compare to Trump. He destroyed an entire league, after all.
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports and the author of EARNHARDT NATION, on sale now at Amazon or wherever books are sold. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.
