WASHINGTON — Pete Buttigieg returned to Iowa this week for his first public occasion since profitable the state’s 2020 Democratic presidential caucuses with a brand new look, altering up his youthful, clean-shaven look with a darkish, scruffy beard.
The previous secretary of transportation’s bristly makeover has been making headlines and producing buzz forward of a possible 2028 presidential run. One of many social gathering’s higher messengers, Buttigieg has been in search of out new audiences in his case in opposition to Donald Trump’s administration, together with on right-leaning platforms with principally male viewerships the place beards typically scream man.
“It was very rare in my former life that I could go more than a day without shaving,” he defined just lately.
After final yr’s disastrous election end result for Democrats, by which younger males shifted towards Trump, outstanding Democratic officers are making a concentrated effort to enchantment to apolitical males underneath 30, together with on podcasts and sports activities radio reveals. Some are pairing this with tougher-looking aesthetics that, till just lately, have been way more common among the many MAGA set.
Each of Trump’s elder sons, Eric and Don Jr., grew beards throughout their father’s first time period, parading their machismo on looking and fishing journeys throughout the nation. It took him some time, however Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) lastly grew a decent-looking beard in 2018 in a preview of his political makeover from longtime partisan bomb-thrower to bipartisan-minded lawmaker.
And Vice President JD Vance broke the bushy ceiling in 2024 by changing into the primary major-party nominee with facial hair in 75 years, placing him in an advantageous place to inherit the MAGA motion in 2028 regardless of all his unshaven criticism of Trump within the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election. If he runs in a couple of years, as is anticipated, he may turn into the primary bearded president since Benjamin Harrison in 1893.
Extra Democrats at the moment are making an attempt to realize an analogous edge. Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, one other potential 2028 contender who has been rallying in opposition to Republican cuts to social security web packages throughout the nation, joined the Senate beard caucus just lately. His facial hair provides off extra of a 5 o’clock shadow, as if to say, “I don’t have time to shave, I’m too busy fighting Trump.”
Arizona’s Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego has rocked a stable beard for over 20 years now. However the Marine Corps veteran’s robust speak about Trump at a rally within the battleground state of Pennsylvania final week, in addition to his rollout of a brand new immigration plan that will increase border enforcement, has additionally grown hypothesis a couple of presidential run.
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Beards and mustaches have been extra widespread amongst politicians within the early- and mid-Twentieth century, however their prevalence declined for a wide range of causes, together with altering social norms and the rise of tv. Analysis has discovered that members of Congress with facial hair have been perceived as extra masculine, but in addition that girls could also be much less more likely to vote for candidates with facial hair.
Christopher Oldstone-Moore, a professor at Wright State College and creator of the 2015 e-book “Of Beards and Men: The Revealing History of Facial Hair,” believes that the world could also be getting into its “fifth bearded era,” stretching from at this time’s hipster beards all the best way again to Hadrian, the Roman emperor.
At the moment’s politicians, he argued, are merely responding to broader cultural developments, together with Trump’s wins over two feminine Democratic presidential candidates.
“Lying behind a lot of the political currents is a whole discussion about masculinity,” he mentioned in an interview with HuffPost. “What is the status of men in society? Look at all the issues that drive the culture war; they all revolve around gender.”
“The right has been leading in the beard movement recently, and I think the left has been trying to play catch-up,” he added.
Murphy first chided HuffPost when approached for this story, suggesting we give attention to greater points. Which, truthful.
However then he joked he was rising a “democracy beard,” and that he’d do away with it as soon as Trump stopped forcing a constitutional disaster by defying authorized rulings and trampling on the powers of Congress.
“That feels like a longer-term project, and this thing’s starting to itch, so I don’t know,” he mentioned earlier this week, suggesting he could as a substitute shave it if the Boston Celtics basketball group gained the NBA championship. (Powerful information on that entrance.)
Gallego, in the meantime, known as himself “the OG” of beards and welcomed his fellow Democratic colleagues to the membership. Requested if he would ever do away with his, he mentioned, “My wife would probably divorce me.”
“The right has been leading in the beard movement recently, and I think the left has been trying to play catch-up.”
– Christopher Oldstone-Moore, creator, “Of Beards and Men: The Revealing History of Facial Hair”
Republican members of the Senate beard caucus — which incorporates Todd Younger of Indiana and Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma — teased the newcomers, suggesting their fuzz was about extra than simply appears to be like.
“Maybe Democrats are listening to the voters and discovering they need to be more like Republicans,” Cruz chuckled to HuffPost.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who grew a properly trimmed white beard a bit paying homage to Santa Claus earlier this yr earlier than shaving it off on the urging of his spouse, mentioned he believed Democrats have been rising facial hair to make themselves look “rugged, more man-of-the-people sort of thing.”
He added: “They probably ought to do it with policy, instead.”
Seung Min Kim / The Related Press
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), one in all two mustachioed members of the Senate, mentioned he was amazed by the expansion of follicles in a legislative physique the place kinds because the early Twentieth century have been strictly clean-cut and traditionalist.
“When I first came to the Senate [in 2010], I don’t think there was any other facial hair here,” Hoeven informed HuffPost. “When [Maine Sen.] Angus King came to the Senate, he showed up with his mustache, he was the second mustache.”
“Then the goatee came on and the Van Dyke,” he continued. “Then you had some guys — Hombre Lobo [“Werewolf” in Spanish], which is what I name Ted Cruz, went with the expanded Van Dyke. Then, after that, the beard factor took over. It’s wonderful what number of beards we acquired round right here.”
“Here’s the thing,” Hoeven warned. “Some men can grow a good beard, and some men, not so much. So it really depends on whether you can grow a good beard.”
Different Democratic senators, like Raphael Warnock of Georgia and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, are sticking with the extra controversial alternative of a goatee. However Warnock has no qualms about his. “I’m for the goatees,” he declared proudly.
As for Buttigieg, who hasn’t but determined to stay with a beard, consultants say he ought to hold it.
“When someone like Pete decides, ‘I’m going to grow a beard,’ that’s saying he’s a very serious candidate,” Oldstone-Moore mentioned. “I think he’s thinking, ‘Maybe a beard can give me, literally, more of an edge,’ an edgy, strong look. I think it helps him.”
Full disclosure: The creator of this story has a beard.
