For years now I’ve noticed a peculiar trend in my Democrat-majority City of Philadelphia when it comes to how people dress for what one would normally consider “dress up” occasions.
No matter where you go in the city—the opera, theater, ballet, lectures—you find contingents of people who look as though they dress down intentionally as if to maka statement.
These are not people who live in shelters or Section-8 housing, but often fairly well-to-do liberals who may hail from the city’s left-progressive enclaves in Germantown, West Philadelphia or University City near the Penn campus.
This slob look—well worn jeans (sometimes with holes), sneakers and shirts hanging out over the beltline—was not an uncommon sight at the National First Amendment Summit at the National Constitution Center on September 13, 2023.
While there were plenty of suits at the Philadelphia NCC event, there was the predictable crowd of scruffy-looking Left progressives who can’t seem to “dress up” no matter what the occasion.
The Democrat scruffy look is based on fraudulent stereotypes: we identify with the working class, the struggling underclass, the oppressed masses etc.
(It should be noted that I live in a largely working class Philadelphia neighborhood and know for a fact that when people “go out” here they may substitute an Eagles jacket for a sports jacket but they still look better than scruffy progressives.}
Wearing a coat and tie in Philadelphia is often associated with the unyielding dress code at the Union League of Philadelphia, which used to be a mostly Republican Club before it began attracting more and more Democrats, all of whom abide by the dress code, of course, but — like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) — this could just be a Trojan Horse maneuver until they gain control of the Club, at which point they can then change the dress code the way Schumer changed the dress code in the U.S. Senate.
The indicators are clear that Schumer changed the Senate dress code to accommodate the chamber’s most embarrassing member, a fraud named John Fetterman.
Fetterman’s election to the PA Senate in 2022 was a watershed moment for Dem politicians who’ll do an anything to get elected, even if that means identifying as a woman when giving a pro-abortion speech, as Fetterman did in September 2022.
Tucker Carlson, of course, was correct when he called Pennsylvania voters dumb when they voted for Fetterman. (As Edith Sitwell once quipped, “I am patient with stupidly, but not with people who are proud of it.”)
While Fetterman cannot help being a giant, he can help passing himself off as a grassroots man of the people from working class stock who worked in factories all his life.
Fetterman, a Harvard grad, grew up in a wealthy York, Pennsylvania neighborhood and vegetated in his parents’ house for years (in the basement?) until he was 49 years old before opting to ‘beanstalk’ his way into the political world by adopting a working class disguise and hoodwinking naïve — and stupid — Pennsylvania voters who refused to see through the scam.
Unfortunately, Schumer’s abolition of the Senate dress code has thrust Fetterman into the national limelight where he is becoming a national icon of sorts with name recognition on the par with Kellogg’s.
This should not have happened.
Fetterman should have faded into the dust of obscurity, but instead he’s the talk of the town in news videos across the nation showing him “dancing” his way into the Senate in his trademark bum outfits, gesturing with his hands and practically doing pirouettes as he talks to reporters about the dress code controversy.
A Philadelphia Inquirer columnist (there are only left wing columnists at The Inquirer) celebrated the Fetterman-inspired Senate dress code change this way:
“While Schumer hasn’t said Fetterman inspired the change, the rest of the country has. Conservative talk show hosts and politicians have given Fetterman hell, calling the rule change a ‘dumbing down’ of standards and ‘disgraceful.’”
The columnist goes on to say that, “In classic Fetterman fashion, he’s given them hell right back,” then reminds the reader that Ben Franklin quit wearing a powdered wig as “a statement of solidarity with the average person rather than putting on airs as an aristocrat.”
Never mind, of course, that Fetterman’s working class airs are just that: a fraudulent solidarity.
The Guardian, that gatekeeper of modern socialist values, asked:
“Does it matter what politicians wear? It’s an issue pundits have long debated—especially when the subjects are women. This time, though, the target is John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat, whose wardrobe is drawing ire, as rightwingers seek to blame him for recent relaxation of the Senate dress code policy.”
The Guardian spoke before a string of Democrats came out opposing Schumer’s abolition of the dress code, but its use of the word ‘rightwing’ hints at the Left’s identification with sloppy dress and diluted standards.
The truth is that the majority of urban Left progressives don’t care about dressing up, no matter what the occasion.
In the world of grassroots leftism, one can rule over a courtroom in MOVE-inspired dreadlocks, appear for jury duty in flip flops, or conduct Senate hearings in a hoodie.
Everything is permissible in this new era of ‘do what thou wilt,’ whether it’s shoplifting from stores in San Francisco or New York, creating massive homeless settlements in the center of prominent American cities, or rioting in the name of “No Justice, No Peace.”
Only a few short years ago in 2016, Euro News featured a piece on fashion in the world of politics, and concluded that, “Every public figure should look their best all the time.” Quoted was a 2014 study by Michael Kraus and Wendy Berry that “men dressed in formal business clothes did significantly better in negotiations than men dressed casually.
“The principle is the same for politicians. When they get it right you won’t notice what they’re wearing.”
Sloppy dress is a trademark of the Left (a form of a revolutionary symbol) and goes back to the French Revolution.
The issue resurfaced in France when Le Monde reported that in July of 2022, the right- wing Les Republicains (LR) party objected to the slackening of the dress code in the French Parliament—or the shunning of the suit and tie—by left-wing La France Insoumise (LFI).
The charge was that the left “was gravely undermining the institution.”
Meanwhile, the French leftists proclaimed that dressing down was honorable because “sans-cravates (without ties) are the heirs of the Revolution.”
The issue was put to rest on November 9, 2022 when the Assemblee put an end to the controversy by stating that outfits (a mandatory jacket; ties optional) should be “neutral, appropriate; not casual, nor untidy.”
Senate Democrats like Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D-ILL) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) intend to challenge Schumer’s dress code ban by circulating petitions and pressuring the Senate to return to sanity.
Quick action on this would also push Fetterman out of the limelight.