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Donald Trump closed his pre-inauguration victory rally in Washington, D.C. with a reside efficiency of “Y.M.C.A.”
The president-elect hosted the “Make American Nice Once more Victory Rally” at Washington’s Capital One Enviornment on Sunday, lower than 24 hours earlier than Inauguration Day. As Trump ended his remaining speech earlier than taking the White Home for a second time period, the band Village Individuals got here on stage to carry out their 1978 disco hit “Y.M.C.A.” reside.
The forty seventh President-elect of the US boogied alongside them, pumping his fists up and swaying side-to-side with a smile on his face.
“Y.M.C.A.” is sort of as central to the Trump marketing campaign as his “Make America Nice Once more” slogan. The track has been performed at numerous rallies held by the president-elect all through his political profession, typically accompanied by his notorious fist-pumping dance.
However earlier than the “Y.M.C.A.” was Trump’s signature tune, it was lengthy thought of an anthem for the LGBTQ+ group. The band was based by two French music producers who have been impressed by a scene at a homosexual membership in New York Metropolis’s meatpacking district, The Washington Post studies.
Nonetheless, Victor Willis, the group’s lead singer and the one unique member left within the band, shared a press release final month explaining why it’s a “false assumption” to view the track as a homosexual anthem and even “defamatory” to label it as such.
“There’s been a variety of speak, particularly of late, that Y.M.C.A. is someway a homosexual anthem,” Willis wrote in a December 2 statement. “As I’ve stated quite a few instances previously, that could be a false assumption based mostly on the truth that my writing accomplice was homosexual, and a few (not all) of Village Individuals have been homosexual, and that the primary Village Individuals album was completely about homosexual life.”
“Nonetheless, I don’t thoughts that gays consider the track as their anthem,” he later added.
Willis additionally addressed backlash to his group’s resolution to carry out at three inaugural occasions this week, noting in a statement Thursday that Village Individuals might be “the primary to talk out” if the president-elect restricts LGBTQ+ rights.
However Trump and lots of of his incoming cupboard picks and allies have constantly unfold anti-trans rhetoric and signaled they’re poised to roll again protections for transgender Individuals. The president-elect’s nominee to supervise the federal authorities’s enforcement of civil rights even spent the final 12 months main a authorized campaign in opposition to transgender Individuals, The Unbiased beforehand reported.
Trump additionally already sought to limit LGBTQ+ rights throughout his first time period, together with by banning transgender individuals from becoming a member of the navy. President Joe Biden has since reversed this ban, however studies have already emerged indicating Trump might reinstate it quickly after taking workplace.
Willis additionally claimed that Village Individuals’s settlement to carry out for Trump doesn’t represent an endorsement of his insurance policies — and even referred to as Vice President Kamala Harris the group’s most popular candidate.
“To start with, our performances usually are not an indorsement of the President Elect’s insurance policies it doesn’t matter what you say on the contrary,” Willis wrote. “Having stated that, we do assist that we’ve a brand new president now and we should always all want him effectively till he provides us a motive to not.”
“We imagine that music ought to be shared throughout political spectrum and never preserved for one political aspect,” he added. “However right here’s the unhappy fact, if our most popular candidate (Kamala Harris), had received, Village Individuals would by no means have been invited to carry out at her inauguration. She would have chosen the likes of John Legend and Beyonce, and many others.”
“However now that President Trump has been elected, Village Persons are suppose to tow the road and say no to an invite to carry out? How does that profit Village Individuals? It doesn’t. It’s merely hatred from one political perspective.“
However the group wasn’t at all times so pleasant towards Trump.
Karen Willis, the group’s supervisor and spouse of the lead singer, despatched Trump’s authorized crew a cease-and-desist letter after he was filmed dancing to the band’s hit “Macho Man” at Mar-a-Lago two years in the past.
Willis defined his reasoning behind the letter final month: “Since 2020, I’ve obtained over a thousand complaints about President Elect Trump’s use of Y.M.C.A. With that many complaints, I made a decision to ask the President Elect to cease utilizing Y.M.C.A. as a result of his use had develop into a nuisance to me”
He then stated that studies of the “quite a few artists” telling Trump he can’t use their songs gave him a change of coronary heart.
“As such, I merely didn’t have the center to forestall his continued use of my track within the face of so many artists withdrawing his use of their materials,” Willis stated. “So I advised my spouse…to not withdraw the Trump marketing campaign political use license.”
