Donald Trump's raised fist makes comeback at inaugural address. But what does it mean?

Donald Trump after his first speech as 47th President of the United States did his signature ‘fist pump’ yet again.

It is a gesture Trump has repeatedly made in the past – most memorably in the aftermath of the assassination attempt, while  arriving at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and after leaving a New York courthouse after being was found guilty on 34 felonies.

Let’s take a closer look:

Origins

The gesture has an ancient and interesting history.

As per Buzzfeed, a book on art entitled Assyrian Origins shows artworks with the clenched fist going back to ancient times.

The works were linked to procreation, prayer, and “the manifestation of sheer physical strength.”

DW quoted late researcher Roland Posner, former head of the Semiotics Department at the Technical University of Berlin, as writing that the fist is an ancient gesture.

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The fist joins the strength of the hand and the arm, the website noted.

It added that it can represent both a threat and a challenge.

It said those people in the Stone Age likely clenched their fists to defend their cave, family, supplies and fire.

It added that artwork on 2,000-to-3,000-year-old Greek vases depict fists clenched in victory or making rude gestures.

The New York Times noted that one of the earliest examples of the raised, clench first can be found in a 19th Century painting about French revolutionaries.

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The article said its rice can be traced via the proto-Soviet insurgents pictured in Sergei Eisenstein’s “Battleship Potemkin” and through its use by labour unions, women’s movements and pride activists.

DW quoted late German ethnologist Gottfried Korff as saying that the gesture first began appearing to represent the working class in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The hand “is more than just an organic, muscular gripping instrument included in our basic biological equipment,” Korff wrote in a piece.

It has a closeness to manual work.

“The explosive power of social issues can be represented with the clenched fist," Korff added.

‘Symbol of solidarity’

As per The Conversation, the 20th Century has seen the raised clench fist been used by a wide variety of groups – fascists, socialists, communists, and Black Power advocates.

“In the early 20th century, for example, it was associated with socialism, communism and labour unions like the Industrial Workers of the World. In these contexts, it was typically viewed as a symbol of solidarity with others who shared their views,” the piece noted.

However, by the 1960s, the gesture was synonymous with the black power movement including leaders like Huey Newton of the Black Panthers.

One recalls the unforgettable image emerging from the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City when two black athletes raised their black glove covered fists to the sky.

US athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos) raise their gloved fists in the Black Power salute to express their opposition to racism in the USA during the US national anthem.

Athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who won the gold and silver medals respectively in the 200-meter dash, did so during the US national anthem.

Smith and Carlos were protesting the treatment of African-Americans back home.

The raised fist then made a return decades later – first as after the 2014 Ferguson riots and then as Black Lives Matter brought the issue of police brutality to the fore after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, as per The Conversation.

As per Buzzfeed, over a dozen West Point cadets in 2016 were taken to task online after graduation photo showing them raising their fists went viral.

In 2017, some of the cast of Stranger Things raised their fists on stage during an impassioned speech by David Harbour after winning an award.

Buzzfeed in its piece noted that the raised first “….is a symbol that’s been repurposed throughout history by various movements, embedded within visual cultures and discarded, only to be recycled again later.”

Trump has used the raised fist for decades.

From the opening of his Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City in 1990, during a famous press conference in 1994 when he threatened to sue the New York Post to his 2017 inauguration .

“Since public appearances by Trump typically draw mixed crowds of supporters and detractors, his use of a raised fist provides a potent message for both groups. It can function as a gesture of solidarity for those who are with him, and one of defiance against those who oppose him. In this way, Trump’s raised fist is like a Rorschach inkblot, since it allows people to interpret his message according to their own ideological preferences,” the piece noted.

Trump himself is well aware of the power of this picture.

“A lot of people say it’s the most iconic photo they’ve ever seen,” Trump told the New York Post. “They’re right and I didn’t die. Usually you have to die to have an iconic picture.”

Trump earlier told the Washington Examiner he made the gesture to show he was okay.

He said he wanted to send the message that “America goes on, we go forward, that we are strong.”

“The energy coming from the people there in that moment, they just stood there,” he added. “It’s hard to describe what that felt like, but I knew the world was looking. I knew that history would judge this, and I knew I had to let them know we are OK.”

What do experts say?

Erik Bucy, a professor of strategic communication whose research focuses on political imagery, told Vox that Trump’s raised fist conveyed defiance.

“Defiance is ‘you can’t get me. I’m coming. Whatever you throw at me, I’m gonna stand tall.’ And that’s what he’s doing here,” Bucy added.

“In the worst situation a person can find themselves, in the face of death, the person shot at is not thinking first and foremost about themselves, but about their mission," media analyst Marion Müller told DW.

She added that the image is an extremely potent one.

“Trump is making a promise of salvation here,” Müller added. “Many Trump fans — and the US is a deeply religious country — interpret Trump’s message as God’s will,” added Müller. “As the visual symbol of a mission to lead the country.”

“This image was chosen because it fits perfectly into the iconic and pathos-laden tradition of American presidential communication.”

“ Trump has an iconic image,” Bucy told Vox. “One for the ages, that is instantly recognisable. These only come around once in a while.”

However, others are not so impressed.

Liz Magic Laser, writing for the New York Times, noted that Trump uses it to claim he is an outsider running against the system.

However, in fact, the president is the ultimate representative of the system.

“When a blood-spattered Mr. Trump managed to raise his fist in the face of death, I thought (echoing Karl Marx): History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce,” Laser wrote.

“It appears that anyone, no matter that person’s power and privilege, can raise a clenched fist and identify as a revolutionary these days. But I believe we must still distinguish between authentic and appropriated performances, between those who work in solidarity with the people and those only who pretend to,” she concluded.

With inputs from agencies