Respect For The Fetter-Drip Is Disrespect For Our Political Norms

“The senator-elect from Pennsylvania is going to bring Carhartt to the Capitol,” The New York Times recently wrote, declaring John Fetterman one of the 93 most stylish people of 2022. Evidently, according to the Times, no one in Washington, D.C., heard of the outerwear company until the career politician, whose lifestyle had been subsidized by his parents well into his adult life, began lumbering around Pennsylvania campaigning for the U.S. Senate.

But the issue at the heart of the matter isn’t the media’s insistence on respecting Fetterman’s “drip.” After all, it’s far more likely that people employed at the Times unironically view the American working class who regularly wear Carhartt attire as sartorial terrorists and blights on their carefully crafted Instagram pages. Instead, the corporate media and the left-wing activists who fill out its ranks mobilized to introduce a visceral, values-based distinction into American politics and subvert the electorate’s expected aesthetic standards, all while continuing to lick the boots of their left-wing paymasters.

These institutionalized media interests, existing solely to advance the goals and narratives of an entrenched leftist regime, have carried water for Fetterman ever since it became clear he was Pennsylvania’s best bet at getting an unhinged leftist in the U.S. Senate. But in Fetterman, they had a unique challenge: How do you convince the masses to vote for a man who doesn’t look, talk, or act like anyone’s idea of what a politician is?

Fetterman very obviously doesn’t look like the typical politician; he’s six-foot-eight, covered in tattoos, and adopted a brand as the “dude” in shorts. And considering that in the current year, “politician” is one of the few careers where what you wear to work actually matters, the Fetter-drip leaves something to be desired. The man himself even previously addressed these concerns.

The media, being aware of Fetterman’s unique fashion sense, worked tirelessly to cover for him by providing the same fawning coverage they do for every leftist, but this time they went into hyperdrive framing what would normally be offputting — his image — as something positive, and worked to redefine it as a regional hallmark that showed how deeply he represented the interests of his constituents. The coverage was meant to distract voters from the fact that Fetterman’s policies were utterly insane while convincing them that a career politician who shows up to work in his sweats and gym shorts could be trusted with power.

If people are more focused on the aesthetics of a race, they will be less concerned about the policies being advanced by candidates. It takes electoral politics to one of its many logical end states — voters make their decisions on something of seemingly existential importance based upon aesthetic signals. Vote for the guy who looks like he might be a plumber, even though he’s rich! 

In 2020, as a second senate campaign looked like it was on the horizon for Fetterman, GQ fawned over his sense of style, writing: 

Menswear icons are not made overnight. From

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