1 week Ago By Mark Kiszla [email protected]
From rowdy NFL stadiums to ultimate fighting’s steel cage, the Trump Bros are taking a victory lap. Unless you’ve been too asleep on the sofa to notice, the sports meme of the moment is unavoidable. It’s everywhere.
Young and ripped athletes slowly shake their hips and give arrhythmic fist pumps to mimic the dance moves of the 78-year-old president elect of our loosely United States. Is this a great country or what? Yes, to the victor goes the spoils, and Donald Trump scored a decisive win at the polls from sea to shining sea. But if you anticipated the Trump Dance grandpa-rocking its way past “Seven Nation Army” and Chappell Roan on the corner of the intersection between American sports and pop culture, you’re way hipper than me.
“TRUMP DANCE SWEEPS THE NATION” the once and future president posted on his Truth Social account, expressing delight with the sports world in his customary all-caps subtlety. San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa has gladly paid a fine of $11,255 to be a proud hat-wearing MAGA, so it’s no surprise he got this party started by celebrating a sack with the Trump Dance five days after the Nov. 5 presidential election.
What motivated him? “I think you know the answer to that question,” Bosa told the San Francisco Chronicle. “All the guys wanted me to do it.” Raiders tight end Brock Bowers, the biggest reason for the Broncos to worry about their trip this weekend in Las Vegas, shook his booty like Trump to commemorate a touchdown catch on Sunday against Miami.
His inspiration? “I’ve seen everyone do it,” Bowers told USA Today. “I watched the UFC fight (Saturday) night and Jon Jones did it. I like watching UFC, so I saw it and thought it was cool.
” After Christian Pulisic scored a goal for the U.S. men’s national team against Jamaica on Monday, however, he insisted his imitation of Trump was nothing more than a chance to ride the viral wave.
“It’s not a political dance. It was just for fun,” Pulisic said. “I saw a bunch of people do it and thought it was funny, so I enjoyed it.
” So, it’s not entirely clear if athletes are saluting or goofing on Trump. I suspect it’s a little of both. It’s all good, clean fun.
Right? Or have we forgotten how to laugh at ourselves? In America today, we can’t even seem to agree on who is going to pay those tariffs. But it’s pretty much guaranteed peeps from our red and blue tribes will scream with righteous rage across our cultural divide about anything and everything, even something as silly as imitating a dance that made us giggle when Uncle Wilbur enjoyed one too many espresso martinis at a wedding reception. On Fox News, former NFL quarterback Brett Favre crowed: “We were in desperate need of President Trump to take back over and get this country where it needs to be.
We were definitely going the wrong direction. I think our youth ..
. NFL players, college players (and) high school players see it.” Over on CNN, the invasion of sports by the Trump Dance was labeled weird and ridiculous, with former NFL receiver Donte Stallworth explaining how supporters buy into “that brash, unapologetic, tough guy kind of persona that Trump has always kind of had.
” Whoa, that’s a whole lot of deep introspection about hippy-hippy shaking by overgrown adolescent millionaires paid to entertain us. Who said made in America is dead? In this great country of ours, we can manufacture any controversy, even something as silly as how “Y.M.
C.A.” by the Village People makes Trump move and turn it into a political football.
It’s naive to think our games or the people that play them will stick to sports. But are you really going to let LeBron James or Derek Wolfe tell you how to vote? Although we all know I’m lousy at predicting whether the Broncos will win or lose, this much I can guarantee with close to 100 percent certainty: If we all bickered at each other less and got up to dance together more often, our angry, divided country might rediscover how to smile..
