It's getting close to school picture time! Who remembers their high school senior picture? Silly hair, outlandish clothes, ... embarrassing after we grow up, right?
Unfortunately, our herd instinct is strong, so we keep falling for goofy fashions just because lots of other people are doing it.
Fashion trends come and go, even in politics. TPC sat down with veteran political fashion commentator Giles McFruity to get his thoughts on political fashion disasters from the last decade or two. Here are his notes on some embarrassing political fads.
Pink, um, Hats
These had a rather vulgar name at the time, let's call them 'female genitalia hats' instead, shall we? I never really understood what this short-lived protest was about, I suspect most people who were in it didn't either. Maybe they just had nothing better to do that day. In any case, their time passed and the oddly shaped pink beanies are as popular as beanie babies now.
Defund the Police
Looking back - who thought this was a good idea? You certainly can't find anyone
now who thinks it's a good idea. Even at the time, it seemed liked everyone who was for Defunding the Police wanted it defunded in someone else's neighborhood. I don't recall the NFL players wanting to defund the police protection at their games - am I right? Just like bell-bottoms and bowl cuts, we look back at ourselves a little while later and laugh - 'what was I thinking?'" Maybe we'll get a resurgence of this one sometime soon - how does 'Defund the DOJ' sound?
Occupy Wall Street
Oh boy - the 'pet rock' of political fashions! A few college kids camped out and got free food for a couple weeks. I personally think it was an assignment for Protesting 101 at NYU. Were they expecting Wall Street to just ... what? It's not even clear what they wanted or expected to happen, but they said it was all the fault of the upper 1% of the population. Turns out that 1% was the group paying for their free food. That's ok - it's fashion, it isn't supposed to make sense.
Autonomous Zones
A couple years after the Occupy movements, a similar fad started up: in the middle of ongoing riots, a group would declare itself an 'Autonomous Zone' that wasn't subject to the laws of the land. They didn't seem to think they were subject to
any laws, so it just (predictably) became a crime hot spot. Eventually the police had to go in and start cleaning up the bodies. In retrospect another silly idea, but folks get caught up in it all and forget themselves. Remember big hair? 'nuff said.
Racist Dog Whistles & Hand Signals
AOC is like the Lady Gaga of political fashion - always very cutting edge. But when you look back, you kinda go 'huh'? She wasn't the first one to mention 'white supremacist dog whistles' but she made it popular. Once she mentioned it, it was everywhere for a little while. Some secret racist cabal was letting people know what dog whistles to listen for and what gang signs to use to identify fellow members is the thought, I guess. Like all fashion trends, hot for a while but petered out and we're now allowed to flash the 'A-OK' sign again. I was hoping this fad would last long enough for me to get a secret decoder ring. Wait a minute! 'A-OK' ... 'AOC' ... who was leading that secret cabal....?