Donald Trump's Oaks, Pennsylvania Rally

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Overview

Donald Trump's Oaks, Pennsylvania Rally, also known as Donald Trump October 2024 Rally Dance refers to a political rally held by former President Donald Trump in Oaks, Pennsylvania three weeks before the 2024 United States Presidential Election that was derailed by two attendees fainting and concluded with Trump listening to music and dancing on stage for the remaining 40 minutes of the rally instead of taking more questions. The incident led to harsh criticism and speculation about Trump's mental acuity, as well as memes on social media, especially about his dance captured during the event that was similar to his viral YMCA dance.

Background

On October 14th, 2024, Donald Trump held a political rally in Oaks, Pennsylvania.^[1] The rally was supposed to be a Q&A-style "Town Hall" rally hosted by South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem in which attendees could ask questions directly to Trump. During the rally, two attendees fainted due to the room's high temperature, which led to delays for the attendees to get medical attention. During these delays, songs from Trump's campaign playlist played over the room's speakers.

After the second medical delay, Trump said, "Let's not do any more questions. Let's just listen to music." For the following 40 minutes, Trump stood wordlessly on stage swaying and occasionally reacting to music, and then the rally ended. The rally in its entirety was streamed by Fox 29 Philadelphia. The "music" portion of the rally begins in the video below at the 1:43 mark.

Later on October 14th, X / Twitter^[6] user and journalist @atrupar posted one early clip of Donald Trump dancing to the music at the rally, receiving over 979,700 views, 7,600 likes, 2,100 retweets and 480 replies in two days.

Online Reactions

The bizarre conclusion to the rally raised significant concerns about Donald Trump's mental fitness, as several, particularly Trump critics, interpreted the musical finale to the rally as the act of a senile man. It also notably received significant criticism in the press, as The Washington Post,^[2] New York Times^[3] and The Nation^[4] covered it as an bizarre spectacle that raised questions about Trump's mental fitness.

The Harris / Walz campaign also used the event to question Trump's mental acuity.^[2] Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz said on October 15th, 2024, that if one's grandpa had an incident like Trump had the previous night, you would "take away his car keys."

On the right, some attempted to spin the event as an intimate and benevolent gesture from Donald Trump, letting rallygoers relax in the hot room. His campaign spokesman, Stephen Cheung,^[5] tweeted, "Total lovefest at the PA townhall! Everyone was so excited they were fainting so @realDonaldTrump turned to music. Nobody wanted to leave and wanted to hear more songs from the famous DJT Spotify playlist!"

Numerous clips of Donald Trump dancing at the Pennsylvania town hall, as well as memes referencing his dance moves, were posted to various social media platforms in mid-October 2024 alongside discourse about the event. For example, on October 15th, Twitter^[7] user @TheSGTJoker posted a caption meme that referenced Trump's "Sad" meme, receiving over 8,200 views, 640 likes and 110 replies in one day.

Also on October 15th, 2024, TikToker^[8] @ndsafterdark posted an edit of Trump dancing with commentary spliced into it from the rally, receiving over 34,400 views, 2,600 likes and 830 comments in a day.