And you thought PA political celebs were just known for evading questions about puberty blockers.
People have to start using their brains when considering whom to elect. Of course we could just continue to leaving election results to the CIA and FIB. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
Sen. John Fetterman’s (D-PA) anti-decorum work uniform at the United States Senate has the entire country (me included!) asking: Even if you can wear a hoodie and athletic shorts to work, should you?
News broke this week that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had defunded the dress code police — greenlighting the likes of Fetterman to join a plague that probably many of us have fallen victim to in recent years: excessive casualness.
Fashion is reflective of the times. I’ve hardly ever looked to Washington, D.C. for such commentary on our culture because it’s generally just suits and sheath dresses with some standouts once every decade or so.
To get to the bottom of Fetterman’s insistence on larping working poor in the Senate, I spoke to two of my favorite menswear aficionados: O.W. Root (Instagram linked here) and W. Matt Tinch (Instagram linked here).
“If you’re familiar with Fetterman’s history … he just got out of like a clinical depression, he was in a facility, and he’s come out publicly and talked about his depression,” Tinch told me over the phone.
“In one sense, Fetterman is authentic if you believe his story,” Tinch said. “However, it’s a question of how much of it is authentic. He’s obviously a person who can afford more than a hoodie and basketball shorts … If you know Fetterman’s history, it just seems odd. He’s portraying himself as just an average joe, and it feels dishonest.”
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) arrives to the U.S. Capitol Building on April 17, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has a quick exchange with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WA), right, as Fetterman walks to a vote on the Senate floor on June 22, 2023, in Washington, DC. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
When you first look at Fetterman, let’s say you know nothing about him, you may assume he was a truck driver turned U.S. senator or a former handyman or felon who got his act together. And then a quick Google search shows none of that to be the case.
In Fetterman’s own words to the Philadelphia Inquirer, he says he had a “cushy” suburban upbringing so much so that he was able to get an MBA from the University of Connecticut and later a master’s at Harvard without ever racking up student debt. By August 2022, his family’s assets totaled more than $700,000. Good for him, right?
I wanted to know if the experts assumed what I’ve assumed, that Fetterman is appropriating working class culture, or at least what he thinks working class culture is. It wouldn’t be so far-fetched considering tan Carhartt overalls and tees are dominated today by Brooklyn transplants rather than the construction and steel workers the heavy-duty duds were intended for.
“He is cynically appropriating clothing that reads as a working class stereotype,” Root told me over Instagram. “He’s doing this intentionally as a cynical move to be seen as something he is not — it’s a costume.”
“I would be willing to bet that if you took a poll of working class American men and asked them ‘What would you wear if you were invited to speak to the Senate?’ I suspect that most would not say a hoodie and shorts,” Root noted. “Most, even if they wear that during their average day, would think they should wear something more formal, something which shows respect for the place and the setting.”
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