Lack of decorum is a symptom of DC dysfunction

There is a significant lack of decorum and respect in this country, and it emanates from the top − Washington D.C. − down to middle America.

Some think rudeness, divisiveness and lack of class don't matter or at least don't matter enough to be concerned by it. I disagree. It is indicative of a bigger problem and one that should be addressed.

Let's take the recent rule change in the U.S. Senate chamber regarding its dress code for the floor of the Senate.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, announced this week that the sergeant-at-arms will no longer enforce rules that require men to wear suits. (There are rules, or were, for women as well.) The unspoken yet well-known reason, is to accommodate Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania, and his penchant for wearing shorts and hooded sweatshirts while performing his duties. He famously would stand in doorways of the Senate chamber to vote, rather than go put on a suit and join his colleagues on the floor. Doesn't anyone else find that disrespectful to the people who elected him that he refuses to do something so mundane as wear a suit when representing the people of Pennsylvania and America? Refuse to join the body and do the job you were hired to do, are paid to do, because you want to dress like a slob? I can say that because after this decision, he acknowledged such stating, "Like, aren't there more important things we should be working on right now instead of, you know, that I might be dressing like a slob?”

“Like," yes senator, there are much more important things a Senator should be concerned with than his preferred wardrobe, so put on a suit and do your job.

Many say, who cares? There are more important things. While that is true, what if the inability of Congress to get anything done is completely intertwined with small things such as this? The overall lack of respect for the institution in which they serve.

Let's not forget, lots of jobs of less stature have dress codes. Restaurants, cell phone stores, car dealerships … many have dress codes, some have actual uniforms. It's a deal you make when you take the job. Fetterman isn't above this, and Schumer shouldn't have lowered the standards of our U.S. Senate to accommodate someone who took a job and broke the rules he agreed to when taking it.

Let's be honest, we've lowered our standards in this country as a whole, in part because the people who should be role models have lowered our expectations for acceptable behavior.

Take Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, R-Colorado, and her most recent newsworthy activity of participating in a mutual grope-fest with a date at a theater performance of Beetlejuice in Colorado. She's caught on tape vaping in the theater, taking disrupting flash-photographs, being generally loud and obnoxious even after being asked to stop, and once kicked out she's seen on camera flipping off the ushers who escorted her out. After denying it all, until video came out, she issued a weird apology about her "eccentric" personality and later joked about it. She didn't care about how classless she appeared, she didn't care about her disregard for her fellow theater goers or the Coloradans she represents and what an unserious person she presented herself to be. She's a U.S. congresswoman for goodness sakes. If she has no self respect, she should at least respect the serious role she took to represent the people of her district.

Well, so what, right? People dress how they want, behave how they want, as long as they do their job it's irrelevent. I don't agree, because the entire concept of accepting lack of decorum and respect, as opposed to requiring it, is preventing them from actually doing their jobs.

This lack of reverence for the institutions they represent was on full display during this week's House Judiciary Committee hearing. Questioning Attorney General Merrick Garland regarding Hunter Biden investigations, Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who is just too darn hip to wear a suit jacket while chairing one of most prestigious bodies in Washington, repeatedly yelled at, mocked, and condescended to Garland. It was rude and classless. You don't have to like Garland and you don't have to respect him as a person, you should, however, respect the office he holds and the office you hold, by not acting like a schoolyard bully.

This is a perfect example of how this lack of decorum prevents them from doing their jobs. They are supposed to be fact-finding on whether the Department of Justice is properly doing its job. If they wanted to actually find any facts, they would've let the attorney general answer questions rather than repeatedly interrupt and berate him! As a Republican and an American, I found the whole show an embarrassment. That's not a functioning government. Governments can't properly function without civility.

Something as simple as a dress code on the Senate floor is about much more than a wardrobe, it's about the level of regard and esteem our elected officials have for their chamber, our country and those they are elected to represent.

When Ronald Reagan was president, he would never walk into the Oval Office without a suit and tie on, day or night. That was his nod to the respect he had for that office. Coincidentally, during his tenure, he could work with political adversaries in Congress and they worked with him, to get things done for the people of the nation and we were respected around the world. I guess what I'm saying is, that may not be a coincidence after all.