Donald Trump’s Other Big Victory

Asked about Donald Trump’s recent election in advance of a November 2016 game against Mexico, the U.S. men’s national team’s wunderkind Christian Pulisic, then an 18-year-old rising star at Germany’s Borussia Dortmund, shrugged. He hadn’t bothered to register to vote. “Why?” he said. “I’m not voting for either of these candidates.” 

Many American soccer fans soon suspected something else was really going on. Every so often Pulisic would be spotted liking a wayward Instagram post—like one saying that members of antifa should be shot—that suggested he was actually a closet Trump supporter. In 2022 things got less mysterious when he registered to vote in Pennsylvania as a Republican. But the nature of Pulisic’s politics—and specifically just how Trumpy he was—was never clear because he steadfastly avoided making any overt political statements. 

On Monday evening, Pulisic finally made one. In the fourteenth minute of a Concacaf Nations League game against Jamaica, he broke down the wing and, on his first touch, feathered a brilliant pass from Weston McKennie into the back of the net. Running to the corner flag to celebrate, Pulisic suddenly stopped and broke into the “Trump dance”—awkwardly jerking his arms and hips like the president-elect does when “Y.M.C.A.” blares at his rallies. Here it was: The long-awaited confirmation that the best American player of his generation loved Donald Trump. 

Pulisic, true to form, shrugged it off. “Well, obviously that’s the Trump dance,” he said after the game. “It was just a dance that everyone’s doing. He’s the one who created it. I just thought it was funny.” 

He was right that seemingly everyone is doing it. Over the weekend, members of the Duke and Drake university football teams broke into the Trump dance after scoring touchdowns and recording tackles, as did several NFL players. At UFC 309, with Trump in attendance, legendary MMA fighter Jon Jones did the dance after recording a second-round knockout—and then gave Trump, sitting in the front row, his championship belt. It’s even a global phenomenon: Players from Barnsley F.C., a mediocre soccer team in England’s third division, danced like Trump after scoring a goal against Cambridge United. 

It was a jarring spectacle. Trump has always had vocal supporters in professional sports in America, but on the whole, politically outspoken athletes have been hostile toward Trump. Players from championship teams often opted out of the customary White House visit rather than appear with Trump; in 2019, LeBron James called Trump a “bum” after the president criticized Steph Curry for skipping such a visit—and James, among others, endorsed Joe Biden. 

Now, things are different. The Trump dance might just be a goofy meme that doesn’t signify anything for the athletes who are doing it—at least not in terms of a political message. But that doesn’t make the dance meaningless. In fact, the very existence of this meme is evidence of Trump’s cultural triumph: He has, at long last, become fully normalized.

During Trump’s first term, the unofficial motto of the #Resistance was, “This is not normal,” four words that neatly captured the prevailing mood not only among Democrats and many independents, but the culture at large. The phrase was in part a collective recognition of the exhausting chaos and cruelty of his administration, but it also served as a wholesale rejection of Trump and everything he represented. You could not grant him a moment of legitimacy, because to do so risked “normalizing” him—and that carried the risk of considerable, perhaps permanent, reputational damage. 

The pressure campaign worked. Prominent figures in American society, from Hollywood to Wall Street to the ball fields, mostly either criticized Trump or kept their mouths shut. From Inaugurationgate to January 6, Trump was never treated as normal. 

He is now. 

That is one unmistakable conclusion to take from the viral spread of the “Trump dance.” At its most basic level, it is a reflection that Trump is no longer seen as an aberration. Far from it. He is, instead, a definitional part of American culture. The “Trump dance” also represents an organic rebranding of sorts. Yes, Trump is still Hitlerian to many. But to others he is not only unthreatening but avuncular. His hideous, incoherent rallies aren’t seen as fascistic or even doddering, but as a source of entertainment and comedy.

In that sense, we have come full circle. Trump’s 2016 campaign was a font of humor, even after he won the Republican nomination (because, of course, he could not possibly defeat Hillary Clinton!). It was only after his shocking victory, and especially after he took office and began trying to implement all of the horrific ideas he has spouted on the campaign trail, that the #Resistance took hold and the joker politician wasn’t so funny anymore. But now, it has become socially acceptable once again to find humor in Trump.

There’s a risk of overinterpreting the rapid spread of this bizarre dance, which is, like so much that Trump says or does, dumb and devoid of substance. I suppose one could write at great length about what Trump’s herky-jerky movements, performed during a famous gay anthem, say about right-wing masculinity. But he’s really just squirming like an idiot. 

Does it mean something, though, when Christian Pulisic does it? Perhaps it was an act of profound catharsis for an athlete who has spent nearly a decade hiding his deep and abiding love for Trump. But I mostly believe Pulisic when he insists he didn’t really mean anything by it and just thinks that it’s “funny.” For one thing, it is kind of funny. For another, the dance is truly a viral trend. Over the weekend, Pulisic saw a number of his fellow athletes break into the dance, so he did it too.

But Pulisic also clearly saw that none of those athletes were facing any meaningful repercussions for doing so. They weren’t handed fines by their leagues, and if there was outrage online there were also plenty of supporters—and plenty more who just thought it was funny. Pulisic probably realized, at least subconsciously, that he would not be ostracized for jumping on the bandwagon. Gone are the days when Pulisic would be raked over the coals for liking a couple of vile but ultimately very dumb pro-Trump Instagram posts.

Trump’s opponents, licking their wounds after his reelection, have laid down their arms for now. At the same time, after an election in which he received a surprising level of support from young men and people of color, perceptions of Trump voters have shifted: There is a growing realization that his support is less monolithic and cult-like than it appeared eight years ago.  

Doing the Trump dance might be a “mask off” moment for Pulisic, but not necessarily one that reveals him to be a MAGA diehard. Instead, it points to something that has likely always been true, which is that this 26-year-old man from central Pennsylvania is like many similarly aged men from similar places: someone who likes Trump and thinks he’s funny, who does not take the danger he poses seriously, and who likely supports some, perhaps many, of his policies without being a red hat–wearing obsessive. There are, we now know, many such cases.

This doesn’t mean Pulisic is off the hook. The Trump dance may well follow him forever. Fans of the U.S. men’s national team, particularly those of us who have viewed his politics with suspicion, will not forget it; and when Trump welcomes teams from around the world when the U.S. co-hosts the 2026 World Cup, it will crop up. Trump himself will almost certainly bring it up if he welcomes the team to the White House in advance of that tournament or to celebrate their winning it (hey, indulge me here). 

But it also seems obvious that there has never been a better time to be a public figure who likes Trump. The #Resistance is nowhere to be seen. The mood, even among those who despise Trump more than any living human, feels more resigned than furious. Maybe we’re still in shock. Maybe we never recovered from the teeth-grinding anxiety and nonstop turbulence of the first Trump era. Maybe we’re hypnotized by the Trump dance. Or maybe, simply, we’re used to all of this now. Maybe this is the new normal.