You don’t have to look far to find footage of Kamala Harris dancing. There’s her at last year’s Pride march in New York City, dancing to Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam” at the Stonewall Inn. Or at the White House party for hip-hop’s 50th anniversary, swaying to Common and Lil Wayne. And then again at this year’s Juneteenth concert, where she was invited onstage to do a dance with gospel singer Kirk Franklin.

Harris is clearly a music fan. She has been documented walking out of record stores with Roy Ayers LPs and educating the assembled media about George Clinton and P-Funk. She launched her campaign to the sounds of Beyonce’s “Freedom,” touted Chappell Roan’s “Femininomenon” for an ad, and was clearly thrilled when Charli XCX linked her viral album to the Vice President, proclaiming, “Kamala IS a brat.”

Such celebrations have clearly frightened Donald Trump. The Republican candidate’s first ad attacking Harris showed the vice president dancing to hip-hop, followed by the slogan: “Failed. Weak. Dangerously liberal.”

Trump also danced during the campaign, but his movements are less convincing: a grimace, an awkward shrug of the shoulders, two clenched fists while the band plays YMCA. The clumsy nature of these gestures and the old-fashioned style of the tune seem to be a statement in themselves; a rejection of the contemporary, a desire to remain solid and persistent.

Dancing is not a clear indicator of who might win an election. After all, there have been many presidents who have danced (George Washington is said to have “spent more than three hours on the dance floor without sitting down once” at one event). And there have been many others who have not.

For Harris, however, dancing seemed to be an integral part of her campaign message – a reminder of the suppleness of her age compared to Trump’s aging physique, but also a portrayal of her as a forward-moving leader.

Dancing seemed to be an integral part of Harris’ campaign message

It was similar with Barack Obama, who performed unforgettable dances on several occasions: at the inauguration with Michelle, in Kenya with his step-grandmother, at a performance at The Ellen DeGeneres Showas he and the presenter danced to Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love.”

Harris and Obama’s dance routines were not only joyful but also powerful, displaying warmth, humanity, and irresistible cool. Still, it’s hard to ignore that they’re also the only two Black presidential candidates in a country still plagued by racial inequality. And seeing their dance routines in that context can put us in an uncomfortable position—one that Childish Gambino explored with the release of his 2018 single “This Is America,” a song about racial injustice, gun violence, the ghetto, and law enforcement.

Gambino’s music video for the song has been analyzed as extensively as the song itself. The video, a sharply choreographed montage of African dance, viral routines, and Jim Crow poses, has been understood in part as a commentary on the delicate tension between black entertainment and minstrel singing—the way music and movement can be used to appease an inherently racist society while also serving as expressions of celebration, identity, and liberation.

One of the best music books of recent years is Hanif Abdurraqib’s A Little Devil in America: Praise for Black Achievementin which the poet ranges freely from Josephine Baker to Merry Clayton to Dave Chappelle and beyond, painting a compelling portrait of a nation and a people that is both personal and political.

Music helped advance the civil rights movement

Early on, Abdurraqib focuses on the impact of the television show Soul TrainThe series aired nationwide in the early 1970s and ran for 39 seasons. Soul Train was created by a former journalist, Don Cornelius, who had seen how music had helped advance the civil rights movement – ​​and in many ways the show was a continuation of that work. Featuring R&B, soul and hip hop artists, Soul Train was also famous for its celebration of dance. There was a section known as the Soul Train Line: the dancers formed two lines, leaving a central space where each could take turns performing – a series of increasingly elaborate steps, swaggers and flips – while their fellow dancers cheered them on.

For Abdurraqib, the sight of “blacks moving other blacks forward” was “boundless and joyful.” And that joy was important, a way to correct the perception of African Americans as a people who do not live but endure. “A people cannot see themselves only suffering,” writes Abdurraqib, “or they will believe they are only worthy of pain or will only be celebrated when that pain is overcome.”

When Obama first ran for president in 2008, the campaign message was hope. For Harris, it is perhaps more limitless; it stands for freedom, fearlessness, joy. And joy carries. It carries through the line and out onto the dance floor. It drives a people forward. It drives all of us forward. It says these days are for living, not for enduring. It asks a question out loud: Isn’t life a little better when you’re dancing?