Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) isn’t looking to make friends among the Democratic establishment and, it seems, on that point she’s succeeding.
Democrats are so concerned with Gabbard’s continued presence in the top tier of contenders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination that they’ve now settled on leaving her politics aside and critiquing her choice of attire — namely, her signature tailored white pantsuit.
The Washington Examiner reports that the New York Times style section, now without a weekly Sean Spicer dance to critique, has moved on to Gabbard’s white suit, calling it cultish and “fringe.”
Gabbard, style writer Vanessa Friedman says, is “using her white suits,” which Gabbard wears during Democratic debates, “to tap into another tradition, latent in the public memory: the mythical white knight, riding in to save us all from yet another ‘regime change war.'”
In Friedman’s mind, the suits call to mind “the white of avenging angels and flaming swords, of somewhat combative righteousness,” and the white robes worn by ‘cult leaders,” though Friedman doesn’t give any examples. The suit “has connotations of the fringe, rather than the center,” she says.
That’s a far cry from how the New York Times style section treated Hillary Clinton’s white Ralph Lauren pantsuit, which the doomed 2016 presidential contender donned during one of her final debates with then-Republican nominee Donald Trump. Then, the New York Times claimed that Clinton’s pure white outfit harkened back to the origins of the feminist movement, and was starting a trend that could “reach its apogee on Tuesday, Election Day,” as women donned their own white suits to vote.
“A grass-roots movement on social media has been urging women to #WearWhiteToVote in solidarity with the American suffragists,” the NYT gushed, “who adopted the color as one of their signatures and fought for what has now come (at least partly) to fruition: the first woman as a major party’s candidate for president.”
Further down in their November 7, 2016 review, the NYT called the suit similar to those worn by “supreme beings” in science fiction, and “something greater than merely a piece of clothing.”
“Though the discussion around white and the suffragists began in the summer when Mrs. Clinton wore an ivory Ralph Lauren pantsuit to accept her nomination at the Democratic National Convention, both movements really coalesced after her appearance in another white Ralph Lauren pantsuit — with a slightly raised collar and off-center buttons that sparked comparisons to Star Trek and supreme beings — in the third presidential debate in October. Since then the white suit, either as a whole or simply as a white garment, has come to symbolize something greater than merely a piece of clothing,” the NYT fawned.
The good news is, at least the NYT recognizes its dissonance. Friedman explains away the change of heart over pantsuits by suggesting that “clothes… are only as meaningful as the content that fills them.”
Gabbard, of course, represents a strong departure from the traditional Democratic Party platform, though not in the way most left-leaning Democrats would like. She’s anti-war, at least nominally pro-life, and intensely critical of the party establishment. She’s also prone to walking her competitors into epic self-owns (Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) is her latest victim), and capitalizing on the criticism she receives from party stalwarts, like Clinton herself.
Politico reported this week that the Democratic Party has actually reached a “boiling point” with Gabbard, and party leaders are actively looking for a way to eject her from the slate.
Fortunately for Gabbard, every time that happens, her star rises a little higher.