Following President-elect Donald Trump’s massive win in the 2024 presidential election, the “Trump dance” has swept across mainstream culture. Videos have spread across social media showing Americans celebrating the imminent return of President Trump by imitating Trump’s signature moves to the beat of the 1978 hit “Y.M.C.A.” by The Village People.
A recent video shared on social media shows an entire New York restaurant breaking out into the Trump dance as the “Y.M.C.A” is being played. The overt Trump support in a deep blue state demonstrates the president-elect’s widespread popularity across the nation. “The Trump Dance is sweeping the nation, and YMCA is Number 1 again, 40 years after it was released. This is the Tiramisu Restaurant in Hopewell Junction, Dutchess County, New York,” one user wrote, describing the situation on X.
The Trump’s dance’s palpable popularity has also led to the Y.M.C.A. enjoying newfound chart-topping success. So much so, that the founder of The Village People, Victor Willis, rescinded his request for Trump to cease using the song, citing the the immense joy it has brought the American people. “I decided to allow the president-elect’s continued use of ‘Y.M.C.A.’ because he seems to genuinely, genuinely like the song and so many other artists were stopping him from using their music,” Willis told Fox News after years of opposition to Trump using the song.
“So I decided to contact BMI [Broadcast Music, Inc.] and told them not to terminate his political use license because he seemed to be bringing so much joy to the American people with his use of Y.M.C.A,” Willis added. However, the singer indicated that he would refrain from playing at Trump’s inauguration. “If you were to ask me today if the Village People would perform at the inauguration, I would probably say not because we’d be concerned about endorsement,” he said.
Although, he noted, “However, because the president-elect has done so much for ‘Y.M.C.A.’ and brought so much joy to so many people, the song has actually gone back to No. 1, and it’s still No. 1 today, so if he were to ask the Village People to perform the song live for him, we’d have to seriously consider it.”
The American Tribune recently reported on the controversy the Trump dance has generated by NFL players performing it as a celebration. Amid the backlash, the league recently issued a statement explaining it would not punish players for performing the innocuous dance. However, sports personality Stephen A. Smith blasted the fact that a statement even had to be issued in the first place.
“Here’s why I’m p—ed off, that the NFL had to even issue a statement about it. Because celebrations usually don’t warrant that,” he explained. “It doesn’t require a response from the league. So why was it necessary this time?” he said. “You know why? Because we got a bunch of people still living with their heads in the cloud acting like they get to protest every little damn thing,” he continued. “This is America. Donald Trump won the election, rather convincingly, I might add.”
Watch the New York restaurant break out into the Trump dance below:
Smith continued blasting wokeness and cancel culture. “And why am I ticked off? Because it was emblematic of the climate that we’ve been living in for years now, which is why I believe Donald Trump was really elected… woke culture, cancel culture, oh hell yes, that played a role,” he said.
The commentator unapologetically stated, “When you got people walking around wondering whether or not they’re echoing the right pronoun. Wondering whether or not that was gonna cost them their job or being PC because, God forbid, your opinion is different than the average folk walking around in America. Lord knows what would happen to you. That’s what America regressed to.”
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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