FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW YORK – A New York Post journalist tried to enter a series of Michelin-starred restaurants in Manhattan “dressed like Senator Fetterman”: a Carhartt hoodie and gym shorts. “You might as well be Lady Gaga,” they replied, throwing him out for violating the dress code. For a week now, with Congress unable to approve the federal budget and the risk of a shutdown, the other issue on the table is, incredibly, the dress code.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, 72, issued an order that the one hundred senators “are free to wear whatever they want on the chamber,” while emphasizing that he would continue to wear a suit and tie.
The decision to “relax” the unwritten dress code appears to have emerged precisely from the 54-year-old Fetterman’s style, although not explicitly stated. After returning from the hospital in the spring following a six-week hospital stay for depression, he was allowed to dress casually unless entering the chamber itself (a tradition also followed by others who had just landed on the plane that She can vote from the threshold, with one foot in the adjacent cloakroom).
Forty-six Republican senators condemned the changes in a letter, calling the changes a “lack of respect for the institution.” Among them, 70-year-old Susan Collins, a lover of Chanel suits, quipped: “I’m coming in a bikini tomorrow.” Senator JD Vance, who grew up poor in Appalachia, disputed that Fetterman’s clothes reflected working-class reputation: “A lot of them Workers respect this building, they’re frustrated by it, but they respect it.” The dress code should reflect that.
For Fetterman, clothing was a way to show that he was not “the typical politician,” just as Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema had already branded herself as an “independent” with flashy clothing and colorful wigs before she did so politically, by leaving the Democratic Party. But it is also something that makes him more relaxed, as noted by journalists who have seen that, despite his hearing difficulties, he is more willing to talk in the hallways, so he uses the iPad or iPhone, which transcribes the words in real time. Conversations.
However, according to the New York Times, the dress code change took away some of the bipartisan sympathy he received after his hospitalization. What seems to bother some is the institutionalization of depression. “Today at a Senate hearing he dressed up as a mechanic and talked about how he can no longer fully process speech. “He has all my sympathy for having a stroke, but that doesn’t mean he should be a senator,” wrote Collin Rugg, co-owner of the right-wing website Trending Politics with half a million followers. However, the Washington Post observes that many families are experiencing the same thing as the Fettermans: his wife Gisele receives insults, but also letters from people who struggle with depression, a problem that John suffered before the stroke and that worsened after the victory worsened in November when the effects on speech proved permanent.
Democrats have largely avoided controversy by emphasizing that there are more serious problems. But a Washington Post editorial took issue with the casual twist, already imagining the senators in T-shirts with provocative writing in what was supposed to be a “temple of democracy.” Even a style expert on Politico argues that the dress code change is a mistake: It draws too much attention to something that should be secondary. Wouldn’t it be better to talk about Fetterman’s politics than his hoodie? And Republicans appear angrier about the institution degraded by the shortstops than Trump’s attempt to undermine the outcome of the vote.
Fetterman recalled “the good taste of the House of Representatives,” where Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, who called casual attire in the chamber “degrading,” showed photos of Hunter Biden naked with prostitutes. And he promised he would dress sharp if Republicans avoided a shutdown and supported aid to Ukraine.