Stacey Abrams

And it, to her, seemed absolutely necessary.

And I juxtapose that with how some of my friends think about whether they vote or not, let alone what they wear to vote.

And I guess I would ask you, you raised respectability politics, but I think there's also just the question of what are current examples that you see that, if not carry the exact same weight that we can imbue in that moment of history that give you some echoes in current conversations about fashion and politics and their intersection?

Well, I'm going to stick with the idea of thoughtful dressing and do a juxtaposition and a contrast.

You had Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who refused to wear a suit during his first Oval Office meeting with Donald Trump, saying, quote, "'I will wear a costume after this war is finished.'"

What do you understand about Zelensky's decision and the outrage that followed and how you situated in this conversation of fashion and politics?

And with that intersection, I would like to talk about the current occupant, who seems inordinately preoccupied with the fashion choices of others, but lacks a certain polished style in his own right.

You wrote an article where you mentioned that his clothes are sort of a perfunctory set of uniforms, that they have quality, but they really lack attention to fit.

I would love to know what you think his style conveys about his understanding of fitness to lead and the fitness of this office.

Wait, you mean outfitting the Oval Office in gold embossed does not necessarily convey what is intended?

transaction that like how much money can you spend and the more that you spend the better it is even if it's not yeah i want to do a few questions with you about how fashion is meeting this moment or telling us a story about the moment we're in

And I use the term authoritarianism.

For folks who have been following my podcast and my Substack, I spend a lot of time talking about authoritarianism and autocracy.

But I think it's important for us to distinguish that authoritarianism is how a government behaves.

It's how it aggregates decision-making to a small group.

It intentionally disregards personal liberty and it opposes any form of accountability.

But it's a form of government.

Fascism is an ideology, and that's a belief system that pursues this notion that a certain brand of purity, whether it's racial purity, ethnic purity, religious purity, sometimes all of the above, that that purity is the organizing belief system of government behavior.

And we can all recognize the most famous fascist fashion.

That would be the Nazi uniform.