Republicans are afraid to have Town Hall meetings now? Here’s what we should do. In my state of Colorado, Cory Gardner wouldn’t show up for Town Hall meetings. His citizens made a life size cardboard cutout and held the meetings without him. He lost his Senate seat.

Meet Cardboard Cutout Cory.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. You can choose to dress in certain ways to elicit certain reactions (e.g., perform respectability), but real respect is about more meaningful actions. Important to not conflate how you choose to dress with how you judge others. Dress respectability is Victorian ethics.

Zelenskyy's character can be judge more directly by how he treats others and whether you think he's protected his country. From what I've seen, he has treated Americans with respect. His attire is to remind people he's at war, not unlike Churchill wearing a siren suit to the White House in 1942.

Lastly, there's a difference between how you *choose* to dress versus how you *view others* based on attire. I think it's fine if you say you'd wear a suit if you were in Zelenskyy's position. However, I think it's stupid to say that he's disrespectful for not wearing a suit.

Many people are unable to separate clothes from character, which is how the fashion industry makes so much money. They sell you on the idea that you can be a certain person by wearing certain clothes. In reality, character is defined by actions, not clothes.

The biggest reason why I dislike the idea of respectability in dress is because it conflates the *appearance* of virtue with *actual* virtue. Wearing a suit doesn't make you respectful, intelligent, or capable, just as wearing a leather jacket doesn't make you rugged.

If you answer yes, then I think Trump and the MAGA movement is stupid. Matters of geopolitics should not be affected by issues of fashion.

If you answered no, then I think we agree that this is just a pretense. Trump's position on Ukraine is not about clothes. And MAGA follows whatever Trump says.

OK, not a one-to-one comparison, as Americans have no fascination with the quarter-zips. But people who insist that Zelenskyy should have worn a suit should answer a very simple question. Would Trump and MAGA have a different position on Ukraine if Zelenskyy wore a suit this entire time?

At the time, French elites were fascinated with the idea of a "backwoods philosopher," so Franklin strategically played up his "rustic" American roots. The coonskin cap, of course, was something of a symbol of the American frontier. And the trick worked: he charmed the French with his hat.

FWIW, it's perhaps worth noting that when Benjamin Franklin visited France between 1776 and 1778 to ask for military support for the then-new-formed United States of America, he wore a coonskin cap. "Proper" French court attire at this time was a powdered wig.

One might note that Zelenskyy is the Ukrainian President, not some Appalachian coal miner, and he's meting with the American President to ask for money. Thus, it's incumbent upon him to wear a suit.

Just look at how we view hoodies. On Mark Zuckerberg, the hoodie is a symbol of whiz kid meritocracy breaking norms and developing the New Economy. On people like Trayvon Martin, the hoodie is sometimes seen as proof of criminality. Again, it's about the bodies beneath the clothes.