Montana Senator Steve Daines was at it again this week, Tweeting more about the old Redskins Blackfeet logo in honor of Native American History Month, and making a speech on the Senate floor about his pet project of trying to block RFK legislation unless the old logo is restored.
And Craig Hoffman, resident of the District, has had enough.
“Steve Daines, for some reason, is taking on the hobby horse of the Commanders’ name and logo as his own thing, in a political stunt where he is claiming to represent constituents of his,” Craig said, “and I will remind everybody that while this is happening literally a mile and a half from where I sit right now in the District of Columbia, if the team was looking to build a new stadium in Maryland or Virginia, Steve Daines’ opinion on the matter wouldn't matter at all. This is only happening because the Commanders are trying to get back the ability to play at RFK Stadium, something that the team wants and the city would like to explore, and it should be up to the citizens of D.C. to make this decision for themselves.”
Of course, it’s not, because RFK sits on land owned by the federal government, so it has to go through said government to do anything with it – which is how Daines, whose home in Montana is further away from RFK than three-quarters of NFL stadiums are, can do this.
Craig played the audio, which you have to hear for yourself in the player above…and man,
“We are adults in this city; we pay taxes, we are citizens of a local jurisdiction just like anywhere else, except for the part where we're not a state, and for some reason, a Senator from Montana gets to get up on the Senate floor and say stuff like this,” Craig said. “But I have a couple of things I want to say here about Steve Daines, and first and foremost, above all: leave us alone.”
Daines’ speech was about the logo being honorable, and that while the name may have been controversial, the logo was a point of pride.
Craig’s reaction to that is basically…uh, some version of ‘cool story, bro, first world problems.’
“How far down this do I really wanna go?” Craig asked. “We have a lot of issues in the world right now, serious problems that need to be solved.
and without getting too deep into the politics of everything, especially the week after the election, the country decided; whether you agree with it or not, they voted predominantly because they wanted things fixed. No matter who you think had the better solutions, there is no doubt that all over this country, Americans feel like there are real problems to be solved – and this election follows a trend that is literally every country in the world right now. Every organized democracy in the world that has had an election in the last few years has booted out the incumbent candidate, because there are real problems in the world with the state of global affairs.”
Point being, people are upset at their problems worldwide, not just here, but Sen. Daines is standing up there holding something for the good of his adopted city hostage over a logo?
“People all over the world are upset by things that affect their lives on a daily basis. This is a global economy that, post-COVID, is still very much recovering, and many people feel it was not working beforehand,” Craig said, “and this clown is on the Senate floor a week after the election talking about a football team logo, for a team that plays 2000 miles from his home state? I cannot stress enough, Steve Daines, leave us the hell alone. The idea that you would have the gall, on this topic, to invoke DEI, is so politically hack-ish that it would be embarrassing, except for it appears Steve Daines is not capable of embarrassment.”
And again, politics aside, this being a total non-starter is something many in DC can agree on.
“You are in the way of something that could generate potentially billions of tax dollars for this city – a city that desperately needs it for education and for housing assistance, because so much of our land is controlled by the Federal government that it is hard to build in DC,” Craig said. “Look, there are there economists that say stadiums are actually bad and that you shouldn't invest; fine, but that's not the argument you're making, you're making a specific argument about a logo for a team name that doesn't even exist anymore. Why do you want the logo back, outside of being a political hobby horse, playing these stupid political games, like the silly political hack that you either are acting like or very much seems like you are.”
And finally, the dagger:
“I cannot stress enough: leave us alone, and solve the problems that the people who elected you here are actually striving for the government to be of assistance in solving,” Craig said in conclusion. “Stop wasting your time on this so that you can hold up land in our city that you don't care about, and you wouldn't have control over if it was literally five miles in any direction. Hack garbage! I hate it so much, and cannot stress enough how absurd it is, how embarrassing it is. Great job, Steve. Fantastic work.”