Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has relaxed the institution’s formal dress code and unleashed chaos. Forty-six Republican senators signed a letter deploring the change. One of them, Susan Collins of Maine, has threatened to wear a bikini to the floor. Schumer “has done everything he can to destroy the traditions of the Senate,” complained Republican John Cornyn of Texas. Many of those outraged blame John Fetterman, the Democrat from Pennsylvania who famously prefers a hoodie and gym shorts to a suit. Joe Manchin even lectured Fetterman, telling him that Schumer’s decision was “wrong” and that he, Manchin, would “try to hold the decorum” of the Senate, the New York Times reported.
The editorial board of the Washington Post has now weighed in. “At the risk of idealizing the place, the Capitol is, or should be, thought of as the temple of the world’s oldest continuous democracy. Within that, the Senate floor is its most sacred space,” members wrote. “Throughout history, those who participated in its proceedings dressed accordingly. Admittedly, the appropriate level of dignity is subjective; you know it when you see it. And when a senator comes to the floor in pickup softball gear, you don’t.” Others labored to make a point about liberal hypocrisy. “Dems who were outraged by January 6 rioters storming the Capitol because of the violence wrought against that great Temple of Democracy are okay with a man at war with the English language and pants getting to wear a hoodie and shorts onto the Senate floor,” the conservative commentator Erick Erickson posted on X of Fetterman, who is recovering from a stroke he had last year that nearly killed him.
January 6 wasn’t shocking because the Capitol is a temple, or because the Senate floor is a sacred place. The harm was not symbolic, but material: Rioters tried to violently overthrow the government. Similarly, the problem with the Senate is not how it looks, but what it does. Joe Manchin is largely responsible for doubling child poverty last year — who cares what he wears? His vote is what matters.
Manchin’s behavior gets at the heart of things. The Senate is a profane and occasionally grotesque institution, concerned more with an esoteric sense of decorum than with human welfare. Most senators deserve contempt, no matter what they wear. If you don’t believe me, listen to Mitt Romney. The Republican from Utah is no fan of a casual dress code, but he’s not much fonder of his fellow senators. “I don’t know that I can disrespect someone more than J. D. Vance,” he told The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins. Vance’s book, Hillbilly Elegy, had once impressed Romney (poor judgment, in my view), but the Ohio senator’s transformation into thirsty Trump acolyte disturbs him now. Vance is likely more comfortable in the Senate than Romney, who has announced his retirement.
Suits can’t save the Senate from itself. The Senate is indeed the setting for “America’s most consequential debates on war and peace, freedom and slavery,” as the Post said. The Senate is also an innately undemocratic institution, making it irredeemable. Recently, its flaws float close to the surface. It is where our pandemic-era experiment in social democracy went to die. It’s where a barely cognizant Dianne Feinstein gets wheeled in for her votes and where Mitch McConnell struggles to stay on task. The same Republicans who are just so shocked at Fetterman’s outfits are largely in thrall to Donald Trump, who certainly has no respect for the Senate as a deliberative body or for democracy in general. The real spectacle isn’t Fetterman in his shorts, but the Senate itself. A dog in a suit is still a dog. Let Joe Manchin bark.
