The “Trump Dance” Craze Signals a MAGA Shift in the NFL

In September of 2017, about eight months into the first presidency of Donald Trump, I attended a game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and my beloved Minnesota Vikings. This particular NFL Sunday––like so many days back then––was both subsumed and suffocated by the first-term president.

That weekend, Trump had launched a series of broadsides at the country’s most popular sports league. He ripped Colin Kaepernick and other players who kneeled during the playing of the national anthem to protest racial injustice and police brutality, calling on NFL owners to get rid of anyone who “disrespects the flag.” Trump asserted that such demonstrations were why the league’s television ratings had dipped.

The NFL responded forcefully, determined to present a unified front. Roger Goodell, the league’s commissioner, criticized Trump’s “divisive comments,” while current and former players took turns bashing the president on Twitter. The feud put the NFL slate on a knife’s edge, with fans and media paying an unusual amount of attention to pregame activities. At the game I attended, two members of the Buccaneers knelt, while the hometown Vikings stood with their arms locked. “Thank you for standing,” yelled one woman in my vicinity.

Dozens of players around the league took a knee that Sunday, with many teams joined by their owners for the anthem ceremonies in a show of solidarity. “When he started to attack players, the league, and the business itself, that forced everybody to unify,” says Malcolm Jenkins, a retired NFL safety who was in the vanguard of the NFL’s Trump-era activism. A Super Bowl champion with both the New Orleans Saints and Philadelphia Eagles, Jenkins raised his fist during the national anthem, much like the iconic Black Power salute by Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics. “You had every owner in the NFL suddenly behind their players. Even Jerry Jones is down on a knee after that. He forced their hand to pick a side, essentially,” Jenkins recalls.

The moment epitomized Trump’s contentious relationship with the NFL throughout his first term. The tradition of presidents hosting championship teams at the White House had long been a fairly low-stakes ritual but became a source of political acrimony after Trump took office. In February 2017, several members of the Super Bowl–winning New England Patriots declined to join their teammates at the White House. Later that year, on the same September weekend that he picked a fight with the NFL, Trump announced that he was withdrawing a White House invitation to the reigning NBA champion Golden State Warriors after the team’s star, Steph Curry, said he would prefer not to go.

After winning a Super Bowl with the Eagles in 2018, Jenkins said immediately that he didn’t plan to visit the White House. Several other players said the same. The day before he was scheduled to host the Eagles, Trump disinvited the team because, as he wrote on Twitter, “only a small number of players decided to come,” and noted in a White House statement that he believed the Eagled disagreed “with their President because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem, hand on heart, in honor of the great men and women of our military and the people of our country.”

Those four years were typified by Trump’s frequent attacks on American athletes, including LeBron James and Megan Rapinoe. So it was hard not to contrast all of that with last Sunday, less than two weeks after the 2024 election, as a very different gesture appeared on the NFL playing field. After touchdowns and sacks, one player after another celebrated by mimicking Trump’s signature dance.

The move––an awkward mix of fist pumps and hip shimmies––is familiar to anyone who has taken in one of Trump’s rallies, where he is known to bust it out during “YMCA” by the Village People. Recently, it has become a recurring sight on the gridiron, performed by professional and collegiate players alike. West Virginia University quarterback Nicco Marchiol did it after finding pay dirt against Cincinnati earlier this month, prompting Trump to share a clip on social media. Nick Bosa, the star defensive end for the San Francisco 49ers, offered his own interpretation of the move after recording a sack against the Buccaneers in one of the first games after the election––one day after he drew a fine for brandishing a “Make America Great Again” cap while crashing a live postgame television interview.

Last weekend, however, ratified the “Trump dance” as a full-fledged trend. UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones celebrated his victory at Madison Square Garden on Saturday with his rendition of the mov e as Trump looked on from his ringside seat. Several NFL players performed the dance the following day, including Las Vegas Raiders rookie tight end Brock Bowers, who credited Jones for the inspiration. Then, on Monday, US soccer star Christian Pulisic made the move following a goal in the national team’s win over Jamaica.

A dance does not necessarily amount to a political endorsement. Pulisic, for his part, said he did it because he “thought it was funny.” And with nearly 1,700 players on active rosters, the NFL runs the ideological gamut. But the league, much like the country, looks different than it did eight years ago, with outspoken players such as Jenkins retiring and giving way to a new generation. The league replenishes its talent pool every year with a slew of new players in their early and mid-20s––an age group that swung hard toward Trump in this year’s election.

In the wake of Trump’s victory on Election Day, the most politically active players may also sound different than they did in his first presidency. “The Trump dance is taking over sports,” the sports commentator Clay Travis, an outspoken supporter of Trump, wrote on X. “Pray for the left wing sports media who have spent the past eight years telling you Trump was Hitler. They have been utterly destroyed.”

Trumpworld is embracing the on-field celebrations. Karoline Leavitt, a Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman, said in a statement, “President Trump is the PEOPLE’s President and that is why he won both the electoral college and the popular vote. The silent majority is CONFIDENTLY showing their support for President Trump and his vision to Make America Great Again.”

Jenkins put it a little differently. As he sees it, there’s now “a different player at the microphone” than when he was still playing. “Back then, the loudest players were those who were disgruntled with the system, who were pushing for a particular agenda to get changed,” he says. “I think you’re starting to see those players come to the forefront who have always been supportive of [Trump’s] politics and him as a person. They’re starting to come out of the woodwork a little bit now that it’s kind of safe for them to do that.”

The NFL has said they have “no issue” with players using the Trump dance on the field. Players, per NFL rules, are allowed to celebrate in any way that doesn’t include violent or sexually suggestive acts but are not permitted to wear hats or clothing that promote political opinions on the field after a game. So apparently, the league doesn’t consider the Trump dance to be a political statement.

In the next four years, Jenkins doesn’t expect as much strife surrounding the White House visits either. “As long as Trump doesn’t pick a fight with the NFL between now and then, I think they will resume going back to it,” he says. But if he were a member of this season’s Super Bowl champion, Jenkins’s own answer would be the same.

“I would still decline,” he says.

Jenkins admitts to feeling disappointed last Sunday, as he watched current players shimmy like Trump. The dance, Jenkins acknowledes, made him “cringe,” even if it was meant to be funny.

“I think it is concerning that athletes, at this point in time, don’t seem to completely understand the power of their influence and voice,” he says.