At the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner over the weekend, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) stirred criticism after wearing an outfit that included a cream white Carhartt hoodie with a tuxedo shirtfront.
The attire, which many argued looked out of place at the dressy event, also featured basketball shorts, a bow tie, and a rose boutonniere screen-printed on the front.
“Fetterman doesn’t dress like this to make a high-minded statement or for lack of options, but to make the conversation about him,” posted @yungchomsky on X over a photo of Fetterman from the dinner giving the camera a double thumbs-up. “Part of growing up is knowing when to stand out and when to fit in. I disdain people who seek the spotlight out of turn, it’s juvenile and pathetic.”
Fetterman, who once wore a casual black shirt while presiding over the Senate, was forced into a suit last September after his fellow lawmakers passed a resolution requiring more formal apparel. The resolution ended the short back-and-forth polemic over Fetterman’s clothes, which saw Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) accusing Fetterman at one point of being a communist who was “demonstrating his allegiance to Marxist principles by wearing ‘worker’s clothes.’”
Since then, Fetterman’s worn a suit for his Senate business without much controversy—though this weekend wasn’t the first time he threw on a Carhartt tuxedo hoodie outside of office hours.
At a January Congressional dinner, as reported by the Washington Examiner’s David Sivak, Fetterman threw on another Carhartt tuxedo hoodie, this time in black.
The white tux hoodie went down like a bad cold for most posters on X, where left-wingers who broke with Fetterman over his support for Israel posted that their patience had run out for any antics from the politician.
“john fetterman clearly doesn’t understand that people let him get away with this schtick because they liked him,” posted @thefouchoe in reaction to a photo of Fetterman in the hoodie posted by Washington Post reporter Josh Dawsey.
“this gimmick of his was a lot more charming before I knew he dreams of bathing in gallons of Palestinian baby blood like the Baron Harkonnen in his oil tub,” added @antitractionist.
“It was never charming,” added @g_dub50.
Other posters dressed-down Fetterman for affecting a who-cares attitude with the outfit.
“The work he put in to find (have custom made?) a tuxedo Carhartt hoodie is far more effort than wearing a suit,” wrote @Bicken_Bones. “It’s such a transparent put-on, that it’s entirely antithetical to his proclaimed affliction.”
“It’s also [an] intentional part of his costume,” wrote @DavidIsserman. “Fetterman wants to portray himself as a kind of “man of the people” who doesn’t need a fancy suit. It’s a substitute for actual politics and a way for him to disguise the fact that he’s a nepo-baby. Basically don’t trust men in costumes.”
It wasn’t all ideological or moral criticisms, however. Some people were just tired of the look.
“John Fetterman’s Shtick Is Getting Really, Really Old,” wrote popular Twitter menswear writer Derek Guy in a fashion round-up for Politico.
“Hoodies and shorts used to be markers of the Pennsylvania senator’s ‘Washington outsider’ brand,” Guy wrote. “Now they’re his entire personality … the outfit … made Fetterman look like he was thumbing his nose at the other guests — including his wife, Giselle Fetterman — who took the time to dress up. A good rule of thumb: If your partner dresses up for an event, you should too.”
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