Against Slobs

Craving decorum in an unserious age.

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263
Sen. John Fetterman walks through Capitol on Wednesday, September 6, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

It bothers me that it bothers me that the Senate has relaxed its dress code.

On Sunday, Axios reported that Chuck Schumer had exercised his prerogative as majority leader and ordered that the chamber’s rules for attire on the floor no longer be enforced. The “rules” aren’t literal rules, it’s worth noting: Coat-and-tie for men is a Senate custom, not a formal policy. It isn’t written down anywhere.

But proper dress for weddings and funerals isn’t always specified in invitations either, yet no one takes that as license to show up in sweatpants. Respect for an institution makes respectable attire intuitive. And because it’s intuitive, custom rather than formal rules usually suffices to enforce the norm.

Disowning its own custom about respectable dress accordingly feels as if the Senate is disowning the belief that Congress as an institution deserves the same respect it’s traditionally enjoyed. And fair enough! But … not a great sign for American government.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    “You, the reader, might be reading this at work right now. Even if there’s no official dress code at your place of business, chances are you’re wearing something that you wouldn’t wear to the gym.”

    So, actually, I am reading this at work, but I work at a gym, so I’m dressed for the gym, too. We do have a dress code, though, and I’m wearing the uniform I’m supposed to wear.

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  2. Betsybowditch

    From a NYT's Op-Ed: John Fetterman in a hoodie and shorts or Ted Cruz in a polo shirt might read as athletic or relaxed, conjuring the basketball court or golf course — places associated with youthful male prowess or preppy privilege. Would we think the same of Susan Collins dressed similarly? Leisure wear for women risks depriving them of gravitas, making them look “off duty,” and hence outside the space of authority. (Senator Collins acknowledged as much when she joked about wearing a bikini to work.)

    Would women in the Senate in sweatshirts, yoga pants or tennis skirts be taken seriously? To put it another way, women’s dignity and authority remain, alas, more socially precarious than men’s — harder to construct sartorially and far easier to lose. Taking away the dress code might exacerbate this inequity. What’s more, formal business attire offers some of the most gender-neutral fashion options, thereby enhancing sartorial equity for nonbinary individuals.

    And what about the inequity within the Senate workplace as a whole? The new freedom of dress applies to senators only, not to anyone else who works there. This could lead to a new kind of visual class stratification, wherein a group of older (median age of 65.3), mostly white (88 percent), mostly male people (75 percent) in various states of leisure wear is being served by a cadre of younger, less well paid, more ethnically diverse interns and staff members all in formal business wear. In such a context, the business attire of nonsenators might start looking disturbingly like waiters’ uniforms at a country club. Hardly a liberating or egalitarian message. Context is everything.

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  3. Rnpm8452md

    Personally, I think there should be a distinction, a dress code for some spaces, to represent the seriousness and the separation and the sacredness, such as on the Senate floor or a church. If a neurosurgeon sauntered into the OR wearing a hoodie and cargo shorts or your attorney shuffles into a courtroom wearing flip-flops and a back facing ball cap, how would that boost your confidence? I think the seed for the 'Slobification of America' started with these narcissistic college drop out 'Wunderkinds' like Mark Zuckerberg, whose mantra was essentially 'Move fast and break things,' indiscriminate destruction of the establishment order, leaving in its wake, on the Right and the Left, the disrespect of all institutions, from the Supreme Court and the Capitol to collegiate swimming and elementary school libraries. I dress differently when I seat in a pew compared to when I am benching 180 lbs or squeezing peaches, because the former is a sacred space, separate and apart from the profane, to turn my mind and heart and soul to the spiritual and not the material. I want Senators to realize and remember, every time they step into the chamber, that they are elected and elite, that they carry the torch handed down through generations of legislators, and when they tighten the tie and slip their arms into the suit, they are no longer Joe Six Pack, no more than when Patrick Mahomes is a Joe Six Pack when he dons his helmet and trots onto the playing field.

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  4. Margaret Collins

    I agree completely with this article. It’s a question of respect. For yourself and for your job as well as the place where you work and what you think of it. The nations capital buildings should inspire some sense of history and awe. It’s not too much to ask. Poor grooming means no respect for the institution and that is a slippery slope.

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  5. Avatar photo
    Karmol

    I've worked in tech my whole career, and I can definitely say that not all adults prioritize professionalism for comfort. Some of the people making some of the most important decisions which impact people on a day to day basis are doing so in gym shorts.

    Also, I feel like an insistence on wearing suits is an insistence 1) codifying the formal wear of a time and place and 2) wearing the costume of a specific type of person.

    For example, if we *really* cared about decorum, our senators should wear wigs and long tailed coats and look like silly parliamentarians.

    I honestly really dislike that our representative officials are wearing the uniform of the ruling economic class (which is often used to discriminate - can't come to the country club without a suit and tie, etc etc). it's an in marker, and it's usually a class distinction. maybe if our elected officials weren't so fond of having the nicest suits and other ostentatious displays of wealth & being elite, there might be less corruption (and inside trading).

    but I'm also a Quaker, and our religious service discourages fancy dressing - our Sunday best is a sweater over a dress shirt, while worshipping next to someone in cargo shorts and a peace tshirt and another person wearing flannel & work boots.

    honestly, we need to get over our "false decorum" in society - the representatives causing the shutdown, and frankly every GOP senator who didn't vote to convict Trump are acting far less seriously.

    I've long said that we have a crazy notion in this country - if a nice young-ish man wearing a bowtie goes on cable news and very politely advocates for child labor to improve corporate profits, that's consider good decorum, but if a person wearing a tshirt screams "what the actual $&@!" in response (rightly) that is seen as against decorum. insanity.

    actually reminds me of something Jonah said on a podcast a while ago, that he never saw the maga racism in the editors room of NR - maybe all those well dressed folks were masking the awful things being implied by using polite words and wearing the accepted uniform

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    1. Avatar photo
      Ben Connelly

      Look I don’t dress all that well myself, but the performative egalitarianism of “we don’t dress like those rich people” has always struck me as inane and nonsensical. It’s just as much of a costume for a certain type of personality as a suit and tie. At least a suit and tie demonstrates respect for other people and a sense that there is something outside of oneself.

      To be honest, I feel the same about the low church allergy to dressing nice in church. I’ve been at churches that were formal and informal and worn more casual and more formal clothes to church myself, but the attitude that looks down on formal wear really bothers me, as if churches where people where suits and ties are somehow inferior to those that don’t. There are inexpensive suits and ties that cost a dollar, so there’s no reason to expect casual wear is more economical for the working class and formal wear is just something for rich people (if anything, expensive t shirts and overpriced gym clothes are).

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  6. BWSmith

    Next week, they are lifting the ban on Senate floor defecation to accommodate Senator Fetterman's potential medical needs.

    (I shouldn't say "ban". There was never any formal rule that said that you couldn't take a dump on the Senate floor if nature called. It was another one of those "man-made customs".)

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    1. Avatar photo
      Ben Connelly

      Hahahaha

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  7. William H.

    Eat for yourself; dress for others.

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  8. Avatar photo
    Gibby

    amen

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  9. Dougrhon

    You might be right about the fit but more than anything else I HATE wearing ties. I sometimes wear jackets or suits without ties. But at work we all wear slacks and sports shirts and that's how I like it.

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  10. Avatar photo
    Doug B.

    He is one of 100 US Senators. Show some respect for the position, the institution and the country.

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