Chalk up another victory for the Senate's #1 blue-collar cosplayer, Pennsylvania's John Fetterman.
Looks like the shambling lawmaker - after months of taking flak for his high-school-stoner, hoodie-and-gym-shorts outfits - has gotten Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to ax the Senate's dress code, which demanded men wear jacket and tie on the floor and women wear business attire as well.
(We wonder what fashion outlier Sen. Kyrsten Sinema will do with her newfound freedom.)
Fetterman famously got around this rule previously by voting from the doorway.
The man's an elected representative of the great state of Pennsylvania, serving in an august legislative chamber; would it have been too much to ask that he put on a tie?
Apparently, yes - at least after his hospitalization for depression this year.
We don't know how Fetterman won the fight, be it via hissy fit or simple obstinacy, but as of this week, the dress code is reportedly donezo.
And Schumer's indulging him is defining deviancy down - denigrating dapperness: What concessions will he need to make to other members to keep them satisfied?
Note that Fetterman wears his "dude duds" not merely for comfort, but to bolster his bogus "workingman's hero" image, though he grew up rich and sponged off his parents until he was almost 50.
That is, it gives him Twitter (OK, Elon: X) cred.
Hilariously, though, it turns out to be a license only for the elite to slob it up: The rule is only loosened for senators, not their staff.
So Fetterman can show up in whatever he wants, but aides and staffers have to dress like they have a real job.
Adding to the irony: Fetterman's ongoing and serious cognitive issues mean that his staff arelikely the ones doing the actual legislating.
But that's Dem politics in the year of our Lord 2023: The big guys get their way, while the little people do as they're told - and do the actual work.
themes: Pennsylvania
