BOURGEOIS NORMS HAVE THEIR PLACE.

Outside the Beltway's Steven Taylor suggests one such place is the White House.

So, I have never been a fan of the MAGA hat from an aesthetic point of view. I have no problem with ball caps, but don’t like ones that have gigantic domes (they remind me of those foam trucker ones from the 70s, an era I do not associate with a fashion sense). Further, they just look cheap to me, if not downright goofy (especially when worn with a suit and tie). Beyond that, of course, as any reader of this site knows, I am not a fan of the MAGA movement in terms of politics.

Still, I will doff my cap to whoever thought up and marketed those hats. They are one of the most effective campaign/political symbols that I can think of in my lifetime of observing politics.

Well, duh, the frat-boy look doesn't look good into middle age, and wearing a ballcap with business attire is jarring, especially at mealtime.  "Uniformed employees, except conductors while taking up transportation, will remove cap while passing through dining cars."

Professor Taylor might be more troubled by the prole gimme cap as a campaign slogan than as a breach of bourgeois decorum, although he notes that also matters.

I find this noteworthy because the President of the United States, who is not only head of government but ceremonial head of state, is running around not wearing symbols of his office, or of the country, but is wearing his own personal brand. It is a partisan symbol. It is like if Biden had run around with a Democratic Party hat all the time. Or, really, if Obama had had the Hope poster on his head. It is a not-so-subtle assertion of party and person over country and office.

And for Musk to run around with that hat all over the place is symbolic of his allegiance to Trump, not to the Constitution/US government (which is what we should expect from federal functionaries, including advisors to the president).

Side note: where were all the scolds in the GOP, who used to perpetuate the myth that Reagan wouldn’t even take off his jacket in the Oval Office? Surely Musk’s get-up, not to mention his unwillingness to remove his hat indoors? Do I have to mention Obama’s tan suit?

Heck, even the National Basketball Association recognized that the prole gimme cap really didn't fit in with business casual.