They are definitely rich and quite possibly flagrantly enjoying displaying their wealth - but why does it matter? I think its a stretch to conflate all that to suggest they are "mean".
As a poor person whose wardrobe is mostly used clothes from thrift shops and sometimes sews my own I'm enjoying the display and not feeling the least bit envious. There are a lot of things in the world I can only aspire to own in my dreams (eg - I've never owned a new car) but I'm content to enjoy the spectacle of rich powerful people displaying pomp and splendour without reading into it that they are personally unkind.
That's fair ... I think they are probably more thoughtless than mean. I did concede that maybe my reading was uncharitable, but I just thought of Mitford's quote, which does have a bit of a mean quality to it. (Nancy Mitford was an incisive, witty, brilliant writer but also a bit of a mean girl. I still love her novels!)
Anyway, you're right, generally it doesn't matter if a person wears expensive clothes or flaunts their wealth. Someone needs to buy these things to keep the seamstresses and skilled craftspeople working at these luxury houses employed. But politics is theater and what one wears to a political event is a costume that projects specific values and messages. It doesn't matter in the long run, but it does have meaning! Ivanka can wear what she wants, but for the inauguration I thought it unwise that she wore French haute couture for both the ceremony and the ball. And I kept wondering why!!!
Very insightful! I've been watching some old movies (think Douglas Sirk-era) with the view that these are the "good old days" that some people are pining for. The women have no agency (or lines! and they get shaken around a lot), there are no people of colour, and men are uniformly angry all the time. The clothes are beautiful, but the class clash is there.
Love Douglas Sirk, whose subversive movies were all about the rot under the gleaming surfaces of American bourgeois society and who sympathized with the women (and also the African-Americans and poor people) who were trapped and held down by society's rigid constructs and expectations.
Haha - sadly that old Forbes Washington blog doesn't exist anymore! I'm kind of curious to read it myself. I am astounded I managed to write something that inauguration weekend — we drank a lot!
They are definitely rich and quite possibly flagrantly enjoying displaying their wealth - but why does it matter? I think its a stretch to conflate all that to suggest they are "mean".
As a poor person whose wardrobe is mostly used clothes from thrift shops and sometimes sews my own I'm enjoying the display and not feeling the least bit envious. There are a lot of things in the world I can only aspire to own in my dreams (eg - I've never owned a new car) but I'm content to enjoy the spectacle of rich powerful people displaying pomp and splendour without reading into it that they are personally unkind.
That's fair ... I think they are probably more thoughtless than mean. I did concede that maybe my reading was uncharitable, but I just thought of Mitford's quote, which does have a bit of a mean quality to it. (Nancy Mitford was an incisive, witty, brilliant writer but also a bit of a mean girl. I still love her novels!)
Anyway, you're right, generally it doesn't matter if a person wears expensive clothes or flaunts their wealth. Someone needs to buy these things to keep the seamstresses and skilled craftspeople working at these luxury houses employed. But politics is theater and what one wears to a political event is a costume that projects specific values and messages. It doesn't matter in the long run, but it does have meaning! Ivanka can wear what she wants, but for the inauguration I thought it unwise that she wore French haute couture for both the ceremony and the ball. And I kept wondering why!!!
Very insightful! I've been watching some old movies (think Douglas Sirk-era) with the view that these are the "good old days" that some people are pining for. The women have no agency (or lines! and they get shaken around a lot), there are no people of colour, and men are uniformly angry all the time. The clothes are beautiful, but the class clash is there.
Love Douglas Sirk, whose subversive movies were all about the rot under the gleaming surfaces of American bourgeois society and who sympathized with the women (and also the African-Americans and poor people) who were trapped and held down by society's rigid constructs and expectations.
I was really hoping footnotes 4 and 5 had links... 😆
Haha - sadly that old Forbes Washington blog doesn't exist anymore! I'm kind of curious to read it myself. I am astounded I managed to write something that inauguration weekend — we drank a lot!