Now that the MLBs Cleveland Indians have joined the NFL franchise formerly known as the Washington Redskins in dropping a racist team name that caricatures Native Americans, the pressure to join them has naturally shifted to the three other professional sports franchises that use similar monikers: the MLBs Atlanta Braves , the NFLs Kansas City Chiefs , and the NHLs Chicago Blackhawks .

For now, at least, the three holdouts have all pledged to keep their names, much as the owners of Clevelands baseball club and Washingtons football team had for years. And their defenders, including President Donald Trump, are clinging to the same old arguments: that the names honor the people they depict, that there is too much history behind these arbitrarily chosen appellations to simply adopt new ones, and that any effort to change them is the latest incidence of cancel culture run amok.

We adamantly oppose any effort to rename the Atlanta Braves, Georgia Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue , both Republicans who are facing tough special election battles next month, wrote in a joint statement released Monday evening, before invoking the same trite defenses Washington, Cleveland and other franchises leaned on until they couldnt anymore.

Not only are the Braves a Georgia institution ... Theyre an American institution, the senators wrote. The Braves name honors our nations Native American heritage, which should not be erased and under no circumstances should one of the most celebrated teams in sports cave to the demands of the cancel culture and the radical left.