Socialists in shorts.

I'm reading the NYT article "Is the Democratic Party Facing Its Own Tea Party Moment? A string of primary wins by progressive candidates has revealed the strength of a high-energy insurgent movement but also its potential limitations," which you can read for yourself at that gift link.

It's a topic I'm following, and I've recently blogged about. I said it a week ago: "The socialists are to the Democratic Party what the Tea Party was to the GOP."

So right now, all I want to do is put up something I cropped from one of the photographs:

"Dr. Abdul El-Sayed tried to attract young voters," and he did. They came toddling in wearing shorts, shuffling in slides and sneakers.

If I were a NYT essayist, I'd muse that they are showing us what real, human, embodied and, yes male power can look like.

ADDED: After publishing this post, I dashed off a question to Grok, "Can the males wear shorts and slides to the revolution?" Answer:

Yes. Revolutions have historically been pretty flexible on the dress code, especially for the rank-and-file.The French Revolution’s sans-culottes (“without breeches”) made a point of rejecting aristocratic knee-breeches in favor of practical working-class trousers, short jackets, and wooden clogs—comfort and egalitarianism over formality. Later reformers, including Britain’s interwar Men’s Dress Reform Party, actively pushed shorts, open-neck shirts, and sandals as healthier, freer alternatives to stiff suits. Campus “shorts campaigns” (like Dartmouth in 1930) treated bare legs as a minor uprising against stuffy norms.

Shorts and slides (or similar easy footwear) fit right into that tradition of rejecting unnecessary formality. They’re practical for hot weather, movement, and not caring what the old regime thinks looks “proper.” Modern protests and cultural shifts have repeatedly shown people showing up in whatever lets them move and stay cool. As long as you can run, stand, or throw metaphorical (or actual) bricks without your outfit getting in the way, the revolution generally doesn’t issue a formal invitation requiring a suit. 

So lace up—or rather, slide on—and join. Just maybe pack a change of clothes if things get messy.

The same question, asked to ChatGPT, gets this:

If you mean The Revolution as a particular restaurant/bar/event, tell me which one (or give me the city). “The Revolution” is ambiguous, and dress codes can vary. 

Speaking of pants and given my interest in the songwriter Lorenz Hart, I want to add that I was listening to the song "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" this morning, the Ella Fitzgerald version, with all the verses, and I was struck to hear the lines: "I'll sing to him, each spring to him/And worship the trousers that cling to him."

AND: The song title is punctuated like that, without an Oxford comma. I myself use the Oxford comma, but I'm not going to edit the punctuation. Here are a few more lines from that movie about Hart ("Blue Moon"). The Hart character is speaking to the writer E.B. White:

I cannot tell you how much I enjoy your essays. Nothing has given me more pleasure; I’m in love with your language... I’m in love with your punctuation. You can’t move a single comma. Am I right? You’re a musician, White.

You can't move a comma, you can't invent a comma. But now, if I consult my Strunk & White, "The Elements of Style," I see that Rule 2 is "In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last." So I guess if E.B. White had written the song, it would have been "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered." But doesn't that look fussy?