Donald Trump dances but never laughs. This is a paradox for the ages. Dancing and laughing are two of the most primal human urges; one might argue they are among the traits that separate us from the beasts (animal experts, please don’t write to tell me that animals laugh—maybe so, but bear with me). They are also among our most childlike urges, the things we humans do easily before we get socialized to do them only when appropriate. Children dance, and old people, people past the age of giving a fuck, dance. And they laugh.
Why can Trump do one but not the other?
First, let’s get the facts in order. Trump not only dances—he has his own dance.
I am sure I’m not the only one enraptured by those videos of various athletes celebrating touchdowns, knockouts, etc., by doing the “Trump dance,” that weird herky-jerky, helter-skelter, arm-based, above-the-waist motion that Trump loved to deploy at his rallies. Various news outlets have incorrectly described it as “the dance he dances to ‘Y.M.C.A.,’” which is totally wrong—it’s his only dance move, and he is likely to use it whenever any music comes on. Catch it in this video:
For good measure, you can also see his granddaughter, Kai Trump (her middle name, you won’t be surprised to learn, is Madison), doing Grandpa’s dance here:
And I will confess that I too have done the Trump dance, but only after dinner, and never in front of the children.
Pundits’ discussions of this dance have been unfortunately serious, covering such topics as “Are athletes doing the dance making a political statement?”—a sadly predictable question in a country where we care about athletes’ politics. But that is not the important question, not by a long shot.
Trump not only dances—he has his own dance.
No, the really interesting thing about Trump’s dance is that he has one, and no other president ever has. Now, I know what you are thinking: What about Polk’s famous waltz, which swept the country in 1847, taking people’s minds off the cannibalism of the Donner party? Or what about Hoover’s famous love of the tango? Fair points, both. But if we stick to the past century, there is no other president—dare I say no other politician—who has ever allowed himself to dance publicly and enjoy it.
Yes, the Clintons danced in public, once upon a time. Go to the 8:00 mark:
And here is Hillary clapping while others danced, and seeming to enjoy it. (Honestly, watch this whole video.)
Actually, Hillary danced another time:
Wait a second! Hillary loves dancing:
OK, I am getting distracted. The point I was trying to make is that politicians don’t dance, can’t dance, don’t want to dance. They may do a formal ballroom kinda thing once in a while, but they never seem to enjoy it. The risks of dancing publicly are too high, and have only gotten higher in the internet age. Here is the super-cut on which I rest my case (spoiler alert: Chris Christie and Bill De Blasio are both involved):
And yet … and yet. Donald Trump has a recognizable dance move. And I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that it’s when he dances that he comes closest to seeming recognizably human. He looks like a silly grandpa dancing. In fact, he looks a bit like my grandfather, Walter Kirschner (z”l), dancing. He looks silly, self-deprecating, and without shame.
What is going on?
The easiest explanation is that somebody who has no shame about anything might be expected to have no shame about dancing. Other politicians are worried about seeming too much like themselves; they hide the skeletons in their closets. Dancing, which reveals oneself, which is as close as a clothed person can come to being naked, is thus terrifying for the typical politician. We shouldn’t be surprised that Trump is different on this count.
There is, I confess, a problem with this logic, which is that Trump, while shameless, is also incredibly vain. He would never appear in shorts, thus allowing someone to see his old man’s knees. He has the perpetual tan. There’s the hair. And Trump is not a good dancer—so why does he allow us to see him dance? I can’t quite square this circle. Maybe he thinks he is a good dancer. Maybe he is a closet music lover and when the beat gets going, his feet get tapping, cameras be damned. Whatever the case, his willingness to dance—and to dance as himself, with his own bespoke moves—seems tied to his shamelessness, and his ego. He believes he is great, all-around great, and his dancing is a manifestation of that. It also keeps the attention on himself, which is, perforce, a good thing.
This explanation is consonant with another explanation, for why Trump seldom, almost never, laughs. To laugh is to direct the attention at someone else, i.e., the funny person (or thing, or meme, or sight). Laughter is a concession that you have found something that is more interesting, more attention-capturing, than yourself. Laughter is inherently self-abnegating.
This is not the reigning explanation for why Trump doesn’t laugh. I think most people hold to the explanation given by Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, in this Slate interview:
And how can you be happy if you don’t laugh or appreciate humor? What that says to me, because my grandfather also didn’t laugh, is that laughing is to make yourself vulnerable, it’s to let down your guard in some way, it’s to lose a little bit of control. And that can’t happen. That is not allowed to happen. So, no, I don’t believe he’s happy. Unfortunately, I don’t believe he’s capable of being happy, because it wasn’t something to aspire to in my family.
Mary Trump says her uncle can’t laugh because to laugh is “to lose a little bit of control.” But to dance is to lose even more control—emotionally, psychically, physically. The difference is that dancing, at least by oneself, is self-focused, whereas laughter is other-directed.
Put another way, laughter is generous. It shares the credit. And that is something Donald Trump does not do.
By this point, really shrewd observers of the politician-dancing scene will have said to themselves, “Wait a second? What about the famous AOC dance?” They are referring to this bit of virality:
So much to say here. First, AOC is a better dancer than Trump; in the outer-borough dance-off with Queens native son Donald Trump, she wins. Second, I think it’s not for nothing that she is also out of the political mainstream, albeit in a different way. We might begin work on a master theory that holds that centrists—DLC centrists, Log Cabin Republicans, Never-Trump neocons, Manchin aficionados, etc.—are inherently uptight, and thus where reckless dancing is to be found in politics, it will come from the fringes. Third, and most important, AOC was goofing on the famous dance scene in The Breakfast Club, which pretty much guarantees that if and when she runs for president, I’ll have to vote for her. Fire this up around the 2:00 mark:
You’re welcome. Happy Thanksgiving.