The first thing to know about the Donald J. Trump dance craze is that it’s not really a craze. (Not yet, at least.) Nor, to be honest, is it a dance.
What is certain, however, is that the president-elect’s signature shimmy is currently en vogue with all manner of professional athletes, imitated by at least five National Football League players on Sunday, as well as by Jon Jones, the current heavyweight champion of the U.F.C., who seemingly after knocking out Stipe Miocic in the third round.
by rocking from hip to hip and pumping his fists at waist level — both hallmarks of Mr. Trump’s dancing — before pointing his finger at Mr. Trump, who was attending the fight in New York and sitting ringside. Mr. Trump, never one to pass up a compliment, beamed in the moment and soon reposted Mr. Jones’s performance on his Truth Social account.
Mr. Trump’s embrace of events like U.F.C. fights and football games — both brimming with machismo — has been endlessly documented, and was viewed during the campaign as part of .
The public support of Mr. Trump’s moves from prominent athletes came after he had trailed his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, in terms of . His resounding victory on Nov. 5, however, has resulted in an increasing trickle of congratulations from famous people — a diverse cohort including the . Mr. Jones and the N.F.L. players expanded that circle even more.
For the unacquainted, Mr. Trump’s gyrations are a far cry from the complexities of the moonwalk, the Macarena or the Electric Slide. Both simple and strangely hypnotic, Mr. Trump’s wiggle incorporates the kind of stiff swivel often employed by arrhythmic wedding guests or awkward, one-too-many conventioneers. In the bent elbows and fist pumps, there’s a certain slowed-down homage to — Will Ferrell’s boozy character in the 2003 movie “Old School” — while the corresponding hip action makes it a dance that is simultaneously wrong for most music, and perhaps barely passable for all.
Sunday saw more variations emerging, from N.F.L. players like Brock Bowers, a tight end for the Las Vegas Raiders, who did a quick end zone dance with the Trumpian boogie, something he said was inspired by Mr. Jones. “I saw it and thought it was cool,” Mr. Bowers . Several players performed similar in other games.
Of course, in a hyperpartisan and often conspiracy-minded political environment, Mr. Bowers’s comments — and — soon spun into speculation that the N.F.L. was avoiding any sort of an endorsement, through dance or otherwise. The Associated Press reported that Mr. Bowers’s comments in the team’s postgame videos or in transcripts provided by the team.
A request for comment from the Raiders was not immediately returned.
Some social media users to the idea that the athletes had done anything wrong, comparing the situation to overtly political acts like the N.F.L. showing support for .
Mr. Trump’s physical enjoyment of music has been a staple of his campaigns for years, including at where a pair of medical emergencies in the crowd led to lengthy delays, during which the Republican candidate bobbed his head to the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.,” one of his favorite tunes, and listened to a version of “Ave Maria,” which is a tough song for anyone to dance to.
While Mr. Trump is the dance’s originator, various sources credit another N.F.L. player — Nick Bosa, a defensive star with the San Francisco 49ers — for its broader popularization, after he did Mr. Trump’s dance . A day before, Mr. Bosa had been for violating a rule by wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat at a post-game, pre-election television interview.
Of his fine, Mr. Bosa said, “It was well worth it.”
As for whether any rules were broken this weekend, the league said on Monday that there was “no issue with celebratory dance such as what took place yesterday or the previous week with the 49ers on November 10.” The penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct, it added, only covers celebrations that are excessively long, violent or “sexually suggestive or offensive.”