The Deadbeat Club

I grew up in a working-class family during the early 1970s. Actually, we were probably only one half-step above the poverty line, but both my parents worked very hard to give my sister and me a blissful and happy childhood with all the trappings of middle class America.

Despite the popularity of the rebellious, love-the-one-your-with attitudes of the “hippie” movement at that time, our parents instilled upon us some universal traditions. To be polite. To be respectful. To show decorum.

These days, it feels like those values are rapidly diminishing in the rear-view mirror of nostalgia. Today, it is apparently much more important to be comfortable, no matter how you define your own comfort level. The emphasis now is to feel good rather than to do good.

When we were growing up, we had three sets of clothes: our school clothes, our play clothes and our “Sunday best” clothes. Despite financial strains, my parents always ensured that my sister and I had new school clothes each year.

But it was a cardinal rule in our home that required us to change into our play clothes after school, before we went outside to play with our friends. When you’re pinching pennies, you want your clothes to last. And looking good at school was important.

Our Sunday clothes were just that. The more formal attire when attending church, a family function or a rare dinner at a restaurant. My sister would wear a dress. I had pleated slacks, a button-down shirt and a matching jacket. We both wore polished shoes. We made an effort to put our best foot forward.

But in today’s world such compliance of proper attire and respect are rapidly vanishing. Whether it’s in the workplace, our public schools and now — even in the U.S. Senate — being “comfortable” is the new standard. The new goal. It’s all about our feelings and unique needs. Dressing up to show respect is becoming somewhat passe’.

Although members of Congress today seem intent on hurtling toward a possible government shutdown in a hyper-partisan atmosphere, one Democrat senator is causing quite a stir with his fashion ensemble.

Senator John Fetterman, a newly elected representative from Pennsylvania, reportedly prefers wearing baggy shorts and a “hoodie” on the Senate floor and in the halls and offices of Congress. This week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer quietly threw out the Senate dress code rules. Now there is no dress code for the U.S. Senate.

Obviously, because both Fetterman and Schumer are Democrats, Republican lawmakers are literally flipping out about “a lack of decorum and a lack of respect.”

In fact, Maine’s own Senator Susan Collins has threatened to wear a bikini on the Senate floor. Please, Senator Collins, please don’t do that. Just the imagery alone hurts my brain.

Fetterman, who earlier this year was hospitalized for six weeks because of severe depression, has told journalists and others that he can work just as effectively wearing a hoodie instead of a jacket and tie. He’s probably right. But here’s the kicker: Fetterman is not just some guy roaming around the Capitol building.

He is a United States Senator. How he conducts himself in public is a reflection of America, not his own wardrobe choice. He is a member of one of the most powerful assemblies on the planet. He shouldn’t dress for that job like he’s about to go shopping at Walmart.

Republicans, however, show absolutely no bounds of hypocrisy in their battle cry for decorum and respect in Congress.

For example, earlier this year, U.S. Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) committed her own extreme fashion faux pas during the annual State of the Union. Dressed like a coked-out stripper from northern New Jersey, Greene acted like an emotionally-unstable eight-year-old, screaming almost uncontrollably at the President of the United States while he was delivering an address to Congress and the American people.

Republicans were silent about that horrid display of petulance run amok. So, I guess bad behavior is okay as long as you dress up? Really?

If my sister or I had ever acted like that in public, I guarantee our asses would be blistered for weeks. It seems to me that both Democrat and Republican lawmakers could learn a lot from my parents about respect, civility and decorum.