Trump's raised fist is a typical gesture with a protracted history of various meanings

In the hectic moments when Secret Service agents surrounded a bleeding Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024, and tried to hold him to safety from the stage, Trump – whose ear was grazed by a would-be assassin’s bullet – raised his fist within the air.

“Fight! Fight!” he appeared to say, clenching his fist tightly.

It was a picture and a gesture destined for the history books.

But although the situation was unprecedented, the gesture was nothing latest for Trump, the previous president and certain Republican presidential nominee, whose raised fist has been a part of his public persona because the Nineteen Nineties.

Earlier this 12 months, as Trump left the constructing where he was found guilty of 34 crimes on May 30, he waved and raised a clenched fist to those that had gathered outside.

He had the the identical gesture when he surrendered to New York authorities in April 2023 after being indicted within the case. And at the top of a campaign appearance in June 2024 at a church in Detroit, he stood in front of an illuminated cross and two American flags and raised his fist again.

I’m a cognitive scientist who Studying Communication and writes concerning the meaning of gestures and the way they’re interpreted.

The raised fist is probably the most interesting forms due to its long and varied history: it has been utilized by fascists, socialists, communists, black power activists and even the golfer Tiger Woods.

A charged gesture?

The raised fist has been utilized by quite a lot of groups for various purposes. In the early twentieth century, for instance, it was related to socialism, communism and trade unions corresponding to the Industrial Workers of the World. In these contexts, it was typically seen as a logo of solidarity with others who shared their views.

In the Sixties, nonetheless, the raised fist was related to the Black Power Movement. One of the long-lasting – and controversial – images of the 1968 Olympic Games shows athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who won medals within the 200-meter race, raise gloved fists above their heads while the US national anthem was played.

45 years later, especially after the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 and the murder of George Floyd in 2020, it became a robust symbol for Black lives matter demonstrators.

But the intense right has also adopted this gesture. Aryan Faust became a logo of white pride within the Nineteen Eighties.

In some ways, the raised fist has develop into a universal gesture of defiance, utilized by groups as diverse because the Occupy Wall Street Movement in 2011 and Students protest In the identical 12 months, there have been cuts within the education budget within the Philippines.

The gesture remains to be considered transgressive. In 2016 Black Cadets at West Point raised their fists for a photograph, which led to an investigation by the varsity, but no disciplinary motion was taken.

The Superintendent of West Point, in a letter to the cadets, wrote: “We all need to understand that a symbol or gesture that one group of people finds harmless can offend others. As Army officers, we cannot afford the luxury of being unaware of how we are perceived.”

Punch and other variations

Analogies to the raised fist are common in popular culture. The gesture is expounded to the fist movement that golfers like. Tiger Woods often do. It can also be related to the “Successful child” meme – which shows a baby on the beach with a sandy fist and a defiant face – was popular on social media within the early 2010s. This might be considered a shortened version of the raised fist, just because the fist bump is an prolonged version of the gesture.

It is unusual, but not unknown, for gestures to undergo quite significant changes in meaning. The V-sign, consisting of the raised and spread index and middle fingers, was coined within the early Forties as a logo of resistance and, ultimately, of a Victory of the Allies in World War II. But a generation later, it was appropriated by opponents of US involvement within the Vietnam War and have become Peace sign.

Trump and the raised fist

Once public figures have adopted a logo, they have a tendency to make use of it habitually.

Richard Nixon, for instance, often used a ambidextrous “V for Victory” gesture throughout his political profession. He even used it in contexts where it seemed completely inappropriate, corresponding to when he was humiliated after his resignation in 1974. boarded the helicopter that flew him out of Washington and turned around to flash those two raised hands and fingers.

Donald Trump has been using the raised fist for many years and in quite a lot of contexts. For example, he used it as a gesture of joy on the 1990 Opening of his Trump Taj Mahal casino and hotel in Atlantic City. But he has also used it as a logo of resistance, as he did during a press conference where he threatened with legal motion the New York Post in 1994.

As president-elect, he raised his fist in a Christmas tweet 2016. Perhaps most famous is his triumph when he raised his fist during his inauguration in 2017. And during his presidency, he used the gesture often, for instance when he was in Nashville for a Presidential debate in October 2020, when he raised his fist to his soldiers as he disembarked from his plane at Berry Field Air Force Base.

Since Trump's public appearances typically draw mixed crowds of supporters and critics, his raised fist sends a robust message to each groups. It can function a gesture of solidarity with those that are on his side and a gesture of defiance toward those that oppose him. In this manner, Trump's raised fist is sort of a Rorschach inkblotsince it allows people to interpret its message based on their very own ideological preferences.

Other people near Trump have also symbolically used the raised fist. Before Trump entered politics, he made no less than 40 missions on Howard Stern's radio show. When Stern moved his program to SiriusXM in 2006, he initially employed a clenched fist as its logo to emphasise the subversive nature of its programming. And there are even a video of a fist-pumping Pauly D and “The Situation” from “Jersey Shore” on the Trump Taj Mahal in 2010.

Trump's supporters, corresponding to Republican U.S. Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri, have also adopted the gesture. On January 6, 2021 a fist raised to indicate his support for the protesters gathering on the U.S. Capitol – just before he scurried down a hallway in front of them.

Will delegates on the Republican National Convention, where Trump can be officially nominated as their presidential candidate, adopt this gesture now that Trump has survived the assassination attempt?

This is an updated version of a story first published on July 11, 2024.