Caffeinated Politics

I could be a willful child when growing up. Probably even difficult for stretches of time. As an adult, when talking with a therapist, my willfulness at home was presented back to me as a coping mechanism I employed. The problem was that I used it on the wrong people; after all, the school bullies were not in my home. I thought of that today when asking myself how Donald Trump’s cabinet does not just stand up to his absurd willfulness.

This post starts with me watching Steven Colbert last night and having a hard time fathoming that anyone would wear shoes that clearly did not fit just to curry favor with Orange Mussolini. The Wall Street Journal discovered that Trump was urging everyone in his presidential Cabinet to wear the same style of Florsheim shoes. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was caught red-footed in a pair of Florsheims about two sizes too big.

There are political scandals, and then there are political…err….footwear incidents. Perhaps, given the fiasco in trying to pin a reason on why the Iran War was needlessly and foolishly started, Rubio likely welcomes his trending on social media for what can only be described as the most timid pair of clown shoes ever to shuffle through Washington.

Photos of Rubio’s feet—feet that appeared to be swimming laps inside a pair of dress shoes—went viral after reports surfaced that Trump had gifted his officials footwear they were then too “afraid not to wear.” Suddenly, the nation was confronted with a question my high school civics teacher Jim Winn never thought about needing to teach. At what point does loyalty stop being loyalty and start looking like a cultish team-building exercise gone wrong?

Rubio’s shoes weren’t just big. They were symbolically big—so big they practically screamed, “I didn’t pick these, but I’m too scared to take them off.” Watching a top diplomat tiptoe around in shoes that looked like they belonged to a vaudeville performer is the kind of political theater no satirist could dream up. It’s physical comedy meets psychological submission.

And the internet noticed. Oh, did it notice?

People joked that Rubio looked like he was preparing for a role in a children’s musical. Others wondered if he was being slowly absorbed into the footwear, like a timid bureaucrat caught in a leather-based Venus flytrap. Some suggested he was trying to fill shoes—literally—that he could never fill metaphorically.

But beneath the jokes lies something more uncomfortable: Why would any high-ranking official be so timid, so deferential, so utterly spineless that they’d willingly clomp around in shoes that don’t even fit?

This is the kind of behavior people point to when they talk about Dear Leader and the MAGA base taking on cultish overtones. Not because of ideology, but because of the sheer eagerness to demonstrate loyalty through pointless, embarrassing gestures. It’s one thing to support your despicable sexual predator of a boss. It’s another to cosplay as a child wearing his dad’s dress shoes because you’re afraid of disappointing him.

And Rubio wasn’t alone. Reports show that other officials also accepted the shoes and wore them despite the sizing mismatch. Imagine a room full of America’s top leaders shuffling around like they’re in a middle-school production of The Wizard of Oz, all because no one wanted to be the first to say, “Actually, these don’t fit.”

If democracy collapses in the next three years, it won’t be because of grand conspiracies or shadowy plots. It’ll be because grown adults in positions of power were too timid to say, “Sir, these shoes are ridiculous.”

Rubio’s footwear fiasco is funny, yes. But it’s also a reminder that courage in politics doesn’t always look like dramatic speeches or heroic stands. Sometimes it’s as simple as refusing to wear shoes that make you look like you’re about to honk a clown horn.

Marco would be well advised to find some of Gregory’s willfulness from his Hancock days on County Trunk KK. Then use it, Marco. Use it!