What’s up with Donald Trump and his YMCA dad-dance?
- Yonden Lhatoo tries to come to terms with the astonishing spectacle of the American president dancing on stage to an old pop song that is widely enjoyed as a gay anthem
Love him or loathe him, everyone is talking about US President Donald Trump dad-dancing on the campaign trail to the beat of YMCA, the 1970s hit song by American disco band the Village People.
Video clips of his dance moves, an awkward combination of intermittent fist-pumping, swaying, knee-bobbing, finger-pointing and clapping, have gone viral and make for compulsive viewing.
But it’s the incongruity of the iconic song itself in the context of his rightwing, conservative, Bible-thumping, evangelical Christian-backed politics that’s making waves. Trump is actually getting his groove from a song that has long been a gay anthem and staple of LGBTQ celebrations. It’s kind of like Attila the Hun turning out to be a fan of ballet.
The Village People band was a product of the disco scene of the 1970s, with members taking on exaggerated, macho, gay-fantasy personas in denim and leather. And YMCA was widely accepted as a wink and a nod to the cruising and hooking up for clandestine sexual encounters that allegedly went on at those friendly neighbourhood, all-male institutions.
As such, the innuendo and double entendre seem apparent enough in lyrics that otherwise may just constitute an innocent account of suburban youth enjoying sporting activities at the local club.
Young man, there’s a place you can go
I said, young man, when you’re short on your dough
You can stay there, and I’m sure you will find
Many ways to have a good time
It’s fun to stay at the YMCA
It’s fun to stay at the YMCA
They have everything for you men to enjoy
You can hang out with all the boys …
Keep in mind, though, that the frontman for the Village People – said to be a straight guy regardless of his leather-clad “sexy cop” persona in the old days – recently made a clarification about YMCA while stating that he was OK with the Trump campaign enjoying the hit song he wrote.
“I will sue the next media organisation, or anyone else, that falsely suggests YMCA is somehow about illicit gay sex. Get your mind out of the gutter please,” Victor Willis wrote in a Facebook post.
Trump’s detractors found more reason to raise eyebrows and make fun when, at the Florida rally where the president was bopping to the beat, he also threatened to wade into his adoring audience and “start kissing everybody”, man or woman.
“Look at that guy, how handsome he is, I’ll kiss him,” Trump said, pointing at one of his fans in the crowd. Then he added a quick disclaimer to put his own heterosexuality on the record: “Not with a lot of enjoyment, but that’s OK.”
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While Trump is out celebrating his purported “immunity” to Covid-19 after testing positive, his critics have condemned what they see as his tone-deafness to the suffering caused by the pandemic, with more than 8 million Americans infected and well over 218,000 dead so far. They have accused him of “dancing on the graves” of so many people whose deaths could have been prevented if not for his cavalier attitude to fighting the disease.
Of course, his diehard fan base doesn’t see it that way at all and is raring to see him waltz his way right back into the White House for a second term. But what would happen to the music if he were to end up losing the election next month? Perhaps he could sing this sad swansong to his followers:
I’m never gonna dance again
Guilty feet have got no rhythm
Though it’s easy to pretend
I know you’re not a fool
I should have known better than to cheat a friend
And waste a chance that I’d been given
So I’m never gonna dance again
The way I danced with you …
Yonden Lhatoo is the chief news editor at the Post
