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      What the foreign flags at the LA protests really mean

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      At the White House on Wednesday, the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters Donald Trump’s decision to dispatch the military to Los Angeles had been triggered by something he’d seen: “images of foreign flags being waved” during protests over federal immigration raids.Leavitt did not specify which images the president had been so disturbed by, but the fact that some protesters denouncing his immigration crackdown have waved Mexican, Guatemalan and Salvadorian flags, or hybrid flags that combine those banners with the American flag, has been taken as an affront by supporters of his mass deportation campaign.The architect of that policy, Stephen Miller, has complained bitterly about flag-waving protesters on the streets of his Los Angeles hometown, and shared video of demonstrators on social media with the comment: “Look at all the foreign flags. Los Angeles is occupied territory.”Trump himself even claimed, during his deeply partisan speech to soldiers at Fort Bragg on Tuesday, that his deployment of active-duty marines to the city was justified because of the protesters he called “rioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion”.But observers with a more nuanced understanding of the Los Angeles communities being targeted in these raids, and of the nation’s history as a refuge for immigrants, suggest that the flags are not intended to signal allegiance to any foreign government but rather to signal solidarity with immigrants from those places and, for Americans with roots in those countries, to express pride in their heritage.Lalo Alcaraz, a Mexican American satirist and editorial cartoonist, who coined the term “self-deportation” in the 1990s as part of an elaborate prank in response to the anti-immigrant policies of then California governor Pete Wilson, said that the protesters carrying those flags in LA are not immigrants themselves, but “the younger generation that are American citizens and that have pride in their immigrant parents”. Their parents, he said, “are hard-working good people who come from other countries – Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador. This is why they proudly wave those flags.”“Of course they’re proud of their roots, and honestly, what has the American flag done for them but persecute their families?” Alcaraz added. “They are promised that there is a right way to immigrate, that there will be a pathway to citizenship, but this promise has been ignored because corporations make profits off the low wages and hard work of these immigrants, and want to keep them in limbo because it’s easier to control them.”That sentiment was echoed by a protester named Jesus, who told NPR during a protest this week that he waved the Mexican flag because “I’m proud of my Mexican heritage, you know? Even though it was several generations ago, my family members were immigrants.”As NPR’s Adrian Florido pointed out, the large number of flags from other parts of the Americas at these protests contrasted sharply with what was seen in the same place two decades ago.View image in fullscreenIn 2006, when huge marches brought hundreds of thousands of people to the streets of LA to protest against Republicans in Congress introducing a restrictive immigration bill that would close off paths to citizenship and build fences along the border, organizers urged the demonstrators to wave American flags.“Apparently taking stock of complaints about the number of Mexican flags in previous demonstrations, organizers made sure that the vast majority of marchers Monday carried American flags,” the Los Angeles Times reported in 2006 on the massive May Day march that year. Images from that rally showed that Mexican flags were vastly outnumbered in a sea of American flags.Others have pointed out that, for Americans with European roots, waving the flags of their ancestors, from Ireland or Italy, for example, is considered uncontroversial.“The reason Mexicans and Mexican Americans wave the Mexican flag is the same reason the Irish wave the Irish flag,” David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, wrote on Friday. “Not because they want to go back there, but because they are proud of their Heritage and want to stand up for people with their ancestry.”“When you persecute a minority, it makes them more aware of their identity and differences from the majority, slowing assimilation,” he added. “In other words, the Trump agenda is bad for the very thing Trumpists claim to want.”In that light, it is worth recalling that charges of dual loyalty were once hurled at Irish and Italian immigrants, too. Less than a century ago, in fact, American citizens from Irish and Italian families were viewed with hatred and suspicion by native-born, white Protestants.To take one example, when 1,000 robed members of the Ku Klux Klan rioted at the 1927 Memorial Day parade in Queens, and seven men were arrested, one of their chief targets was New York’s Irish American-led police force, which tried to prevent them from marching. One of those men was the current president’s father, Fred Trump. (A report from the time in a Brooklyn newspaper said that “a charge of refusing to disperse from a parade when ordered to do so” against Trump was quickly dismissed.)The deep vein of hatred Italian immigrants faced was even a motivating factor in the the first Columbus Day proclamation, issued by Benjamin Harrison in 1892. The then US president hoped to gain support from new Italian American voters, but he was also trying to absolve the country of the stain from a deadly anti-Italian riot the year before in New Orleans, in which 11 Italian immigrants had been falsely accused of murder and were lynched by a mob.One of Trump’s first acts on returning to office this year was to issue a proclamation that Columbus Day would be celebrated during his administration without any acknowledgement of the Indigenous people who suffered so much in the centuries after his voyage to this hemisphere. More

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      Director of National Portrait Gallery resigns after Trump’s effort to fire her

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      The director of the National Portrait Gallery, Kim Sajet, has resigned just two weeks after Donald Trump attempted to fire her and accused her of being “highly partisan and a strong supporter of DEI”.“We thank Kim for her service. Her decision to put the museum first is to be applauded and appreciated. I know this was not an easy decision. She put the needs of the Institution above her own, and for that we thank her,” Lonnie Bunch, the Smithsonian secretary, wrote in a Friday internal email that was obtained by multiple outlets.“We are grateful to Kim for leading the National Portrait Gallery with passion and creativity for 12 years. Throughout her tenure, she has reimagined and reshaped the impact and storytelling of portraiture.”The announcement comes after the Smithsonian Institution earlier this week rebuffed Trump’s attempt to fire Sajet, with the museum’s governing board asserting its independence and turning away the president’s claim of authority over the institution’s staffing.Trump announced on 30 May that he had fired Sajet, calling her a “highly partisan person, and a strong supporter of DEI, which is totally inappropriate for her position”.His attack focused, among other reasons, on her Democratic political donations and her rejection of a pro-Trump painting by artist Julian Raven. Sajet reportedly told Raven his artwork was “too pro-Trump” and “too political” for the gallery, the artist told the Washingtonian in 2019.In a statement on Monday, the Smithsonian’s board of regents declared that “all personnel decisions are made by and subject to the direction of the secretary, with oversight by the board”. The statement did not name Sajet or mention the Trump administration directly.Following Trump’s announcement, Sajet continued reporting to work throughout early June, creating a direct confrontation between the White House and the Smithsonian Institution – the country’s flagship cultural institution that has a 178-year-old governance structure built against political interference.Appointed in 2013, Sajet became the National Portrait Gallery’s first female director. Kevin Gover, undersecretary for museums and culture, has replaced her as acting director of the museum.In a statement shared by the internal memo on Friday, Sajet said it had been “the honor of a lifetime to lead the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery”.“This was not an easy decision, but I believe it is the right one,” she wrote. “From the very beginning, my guiding principle has been to put the museum first. Today, I believe that stepping aside is the best way to serve the institution I hold so deeply in my heart.“The role of a museum director has never been about one individual – it is a shared mission, driven by the passion, creativity, and dedication of an extraordinary team.”A statement from a White House spokesperson, David Ingle, reads: “On day one, President Trump made clear that there is no place for dangerous anti-American ideology in our government and institutions.“In align with this objective, he ordered the termination of Kim Sajet. The Trump Administration is committed to restoring American greatness and celebrating our nation’s proud history.” More

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      Donald Trump is losing control of American foreign policy | Christopher S Chivvis

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      Iran and the US have stood at a crossroads in recent weeks. Down one path lay negotiations that, while difficult, promised benefits to the citizens of both countries. Down the other path, a protracted war that promised little more than destruction.Back in 2018, Donald Trump had blocked the diplomatic path by tearing up the existing nuclear agreement with Iran – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. But since beginning his second term in January he has been surprisingly open to negotiations with Tehran. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, seemed ready to go along.But the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has now decided for them in favor of the path of war, and despite initial hesitation, Trump now appears to be following him. Though uniquely positioned to rein in Netanyahu – more than any US president in decades – Trump has jumped on his bandwagon.After entering office, Trump rightly pursued a deal that would offer Iran sanctions relief in return for an end to its nuclear weapons program. This deal would have served the interests of both parties. The risk of an Iranian nuclear breakout would have been greatly reduced, thus reducing pressure on other regional and global powers to pursue nuclear weapons themselves. Global energy markets would have benefited. The United States could have meanwhile pursued the drawdown of its military forces in the region, thus furthering a goal of every US president since Barack Obama. Improved US relations with Iran would also have helped to complicate Iran’s deepening ties to Russia and China.But the Israeli government wanted none of this and has therefore spoiled the Trump administration’s negotiations. The Israeli government claims that Iran was days away from a bomb and that it had no choice but to attack. This is hard to believe. For years, experts, including the US intelligence community, have estimated it would take months if not years for Iran to not only produce enough highly enriched uranium but to also build a bomb with it. If this timeline had changed in recent days, the US would almost certainly have joined Israel in these strikes.The strikes also will not end Iran’s nuclear program. The damage will be real, and military operations are ongoing, but Israel is ultimately only capable of destroying parts of Iran’s program. The destruction of the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz is a setback for Iran, but these facilities can be rebuilt. The assassination of Iran’s nuclear scientists is a blow, but their knowledge can also be replaced over time. History shows that so-called decapitation strikes can have a near-term effect, but they rarely work in the long term. Even if the United States now joins Israel in strikes, this will not eliminate Iran’s weapons program entirely without a regime change operation against Tehran. That strategy would repeat the tragic errors of the 2003 Iraq war, but on an even larger scale.Iran’s nuclear weapons program will thus remain in some form. But hope of negotiations to control it is now badly damaged. The result is the worst of both worlds: a vengeful Iran even more determined to get nuclear weapons and no hope of negotiating a way out.Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, has wisely attempted to distance the United States from Israel’s attack. Trump, however, who initially tried to rein in Israel’s attack, has now tried to use it as leverage to get Tehran to sign up for his deal. Aligning America so closely with Israel at this juncture is only likely to draw the United States more deeply into the conflict and expose it to Iranian reprisals.As a negotiating tactic it is also unlikely to work. The autocrats in Tehran cannot allow themselves to be visibly coerced into a deal lest it damage their domestic legitimacy. Some powerful Iranian officials moreover benefit from the status quo under sanctions, which have enriched a powerful few at the cost of the Iranian people.Israel’s audacious move is another example of US partners seizing the strategic initiative from Trump. Israel’s strikes come on the heels of the decision by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to strike deep into Russia with drones at the very moment the US was attempting to negotiate a ceasefire with Moscow.With the US focused on the turmoil the Trump administration is whipping up domestically, and so much uncertainty about the trajectory of Trump’s global policy goals, other actors are probably going to do the same. Unless the administration can find the discipline and focus to get control over its own foreign policy, the United States risks getting dragged into more conflicts that will not serve the interests of the American people.

      Chris Chivvis is a senior fellow and director of the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace More

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      Republican in South Carolina arrested over distribution of child sexual abuse material

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      A Republican member of South Carolina’s state house whom prosecutors say used the screen name “joebidennnn69” has been arrested and charged with 10 counts of distributing sexual abuse material involving children.RJ May was arrested at his Lexington county home after a lengthy investigation and was ordered on Thursday by a federal judge to remain jailed until his trial.The three-term Republican is accused of using “joebidennnn69” to exchange 220 files of toddlers and young children involved in sex acts on the Kik social media network for about five days in spring 2024, according to court documents that graphically detailed the videos.During that timeframe, Joe Biden was in the final year of his presidency before May’s fellow Republican Donald Trump won the November 2024 election to return to the White House in January.Each charge against May carries a five-to-20-year prison sentence upon conviction. Prosecutors suggested May could spend more than a decade in prison if found guilty.The files at the center of the case were uploaded and downloaded using May’s home wifi network and his cellphone, prosecutors said. Some were hidden by the use of a private network, but others were directly linked to his internet addresses.At his arraignment, May’s lawyer suggested someone could have used the wifi password that was shown on a board behind a photo May’s wife may have posted online. Attorney Dayne Phillips also suggested investigators did not link each Kik message directly to May.Prosecutors asked that May, 38, not be given bail because he lives at home with his wife and young children, and some of the files he is accused of sharing feature children of about the same age as his.Prosecutors said they also investigated whether May had used a fake name to travel to Colombia three times after finding videos on his laptop of him allegedly having sex with three girls or women. An agent from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) testified the three appeared to be underage and were paid. Agents have not been able to locate the three.Prosecutors said May created a Facebook account with his fake name, and his internet history showed him switching between his real account and the fake one – and even searching his primary opponent from the fake login.Phillips, May’s lawyer, told the courtroom that no sexual images of toddlers or young children were found directly on his laptop or cellphone.After spending the night in jail, May appeared in court on Thursday in shorts and a T-shirt with his wrists and ankles in cuffs. After being ordered to stay in jail, he appeared to blow a kiss to his wife, who was at the hearing.After May’s election in 2020, he helped create the Freedom caucus, a group of the house’s most conservative members who say mainstream Republicans in the chamber are not the true conservative heart of their party. He also helped the campaigns of Republicans running against the party’s house incumbents.“We as legislators have an obligation to insure that our children have no harm done to them,” May said in January 2024 on the house floor during a debate on transgender care for minors.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHis son charmed the house in April 2021 when May brought him to visit for his third birthday, and the boy practiced his parade wave around the chamber.The Freedom caucus released a statement on Wednesday night saying they had kicked May out of their group after his arrest.Many of his one-time friends distanced themselves from May as rumors of the investigation spread through the South Carolina statehouse. During the current session, he could largely be seen at his corner desk in the back of the 124-seat chamber, mixing with very few colleagues.The house speaker suspended May from his seat after the indictment.May’s lawyer suggested he could have been framed and asked the DHS agent if she knew that May had a lot of political enemies.“There are a fair amount of people who don’t like me either, Mr Phillips,” agent Britton Lorenzen replied. More

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      Hundreds of US marines arrive in LA as large protests are planned across US

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      Federal troops continued to be on duty in the streets of Los Angeles on Friday after a series of court rulings, and more arrived, with large protests planned in California and across the country this weekend against the Trump administration’s aggressive anti-immigration raids and a big military parade in Washington DC.About 200 US marines arrived in LA on Friday morning. This followed Donald Trump’s extraordinary decision to deploy national guard troops to LA last weekend, over the objections of the governor of California, Gavin Newsom. The marines were to take over protecting a federal building, US Army Maj Gen Scott Sherman, who commands the taskforce of marines and national guardsmen, said.The streets had been mostly calm overnight going into Friday morning, marking the seventh day of protests across various areas and the third day of an overnight curfew in a small part of the huge downtown area.Sporadic demonstrations have also taken place in cities including New York, Chicago, Seattle and Austin on several days in the last week against Trump’s pushing of his mass deportation agenda, undertaken by targeting undocumented communities in the US interior.And millions more are expected to turn out to protest on Saturday at roughly 2,000 sites nationwide in a demonstration dubbed “No Kings” against what critics see as Trump taking actions on the brink of authoritarianism.The mass protests are timed to coincide with the US president’s controversial military parade in Washington DC to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the formation of the US army, and coincidentally his 79th birthday.The protests in Los Angeles and subsequent deployment of California’s national guard by Trump, over the furious objections of Newsom, is a move that had not happened in the US in at least half a century, sparking a legal battle between the president and Newsom.Late on Thursday, a federal judge ruled that the federal deployment of troops by the president to aid in civilian US law enforcement in LA should be blocked. The administration swiftly appealed and a higher court paused the restraining order until Tuesday, when it will hear the case.Judge Charles Breyer’s ruling in Newsom v Trump stated that Trump had unlawfully bypassed congressionally mandated procedures.Newsom in an interview with the New York Times podcast on Thursday called Trump a “stone cold liar” for claiming he had discussed a federal deployment with the governor by telephone.Democrats and advocacy groups view Trump’s deployment as an abuse of power aimed at suppressing free speech and supporting aggressive anti-immigration policies.Trump’s use of the troops follows earlier, unfulfilled threats during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in his first administration, when he considered, but ultimately declined, to deploy federal troops and has since expressed regret about not cracking down more forcefully.The president has defended his decision to send troops to LA claiming without any evidence that the city would have been “obliterated” and “burned to the ground” had he not initiated the deployment.In Washington, Saturday’s parade is billed as a patriotic celebration, while critics argue it is more about Trump’s personal brand and ego than promoting national unity. Organizers of No Kings protests have avoided planning a demonstration in the nation’s capital, in an attempt to draw attention away from tanks, armored vehicles, troops and aircraft on display.“The flag doesn’t belong to President Trump. It belongs to us,” read a statement from the No Kings protest movement.The parade will culminate on Saturday evening with a procession of 6,600 soldiers, dozens of tanks, and a live broadcast message from an astronaut in space. Inspired by a Bastille Day parade Trump witnessed in France in 2017, but with strong echoes of the kind of regular displays under authoritarian regimes such as Russia, North Korea and China, the event is expected to cost up to $45m, sources told NBC News.Meanwhile, some members of the national guard troops deployed to Los Angeles and some of their family members have expressed discomfort with their mission, feeling it drags them into a politically charged domestic power struggle.“The sentiment across the board right now is that deploying military force against our own communities isn’t the kind of national security we signed up for,” said Sarah Streyder of the Secure Families Initiative, which advocates for military families. “Families are scared not just for their loved ones’ safety, although that’s a big concern, but also for what their service is being used to justify.”Chris Purdy of the Chamberlain Network echoed those concerns: “Morale is not great, is the quote I keep hearing,” he said, citing multiple national guard members who contacted his organization.Amid the ongoing legal and political fallout, arrests have continued, although sporadic incidents of early looting have subsided. Jose Manuel Mojica, a 30-year-old father of four, was charged with assaulting a federal officer during a protest in Paramount, a community in southern Los Angeles County.And on Thursday, Alex Padilla, a Democratic US senator for California and vocal critic of the Trump administration’s immigration polices, was forcibly removed and handcuffed as he attempted to ask a question at a press conference held by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, in Los Angeles.In video taken of the incident that has since gone viral on social media, Padilla is seen being restrained and removed from the room by Secret Service and FBI agents. He warned that if this was how he was dealt with it spoke ill for ordinary civilians being summarily arrested and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).Most Republican national lawmakers criticized Padilla, although some Republican senators condemned his treatment, while Democrats overwhelmingly applauded his challenge to the administration and were appalled at his removal.Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles contributed reporting More

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      The Guardian view on Israel’s shock attack on Iran: confusing US signals add to the peril | Editorial

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      US presidents who thought they could easily restrain Benjamin Netanyahu have quickly learned their lesson. “Who’s the fucking superpower?” Bill Clinton reportedly exploded after his first meeting with the Israeli prime minister.Did Donald Trump make the same mistake? The state department quickly declared that the devastating overnight Israeli attack on Iran – which killed key military commanders and nuclear scientists as well as striking its missile capacity and a nuclear enrichment site – was unilateral. Mr Trump had reportedly urged Mr Netanyahu to hold off in a call on Monday, pending US talks with Iran over its nuclear programme due this weekend. The suspicion is that Israel feared that a deal might be reached and wanted to strike first. But Israeli officials have briefed that they had a secret green light from the US, with Mr Trump only claiming to oppose it.Iran, reeling from the attack but afraid of looking too weak to retaliate, is unlikely to believe that the US did not acquiesce to the offensive, if unenthusiastically. It might suit it better to pretend otherwise – in the short term, it is not clear what ability it has to hit back at Israel, never mind taking on the US. But Mr Trump has made that hard by threatening “even more brutal attacks” ahead, urging Iran to “make a deal, before there’s nothing left” and claiming that “we knew everything”. Whether Israel really convinced Mr Trump that this was the way to cut a deal, or he is offering a post-hoc justification after being outflanked by Mr Netanyahu, may no longer matter.Israel has become increasingly and dangerously confident of its ability to reshape the Middle East without pushing it over the brink. It believes that its previous pummellings of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran’s air defences have created a brief opportunity to destroy the existential threat posed by the Iranian nuclear programme before it is too late. Russia is not about to ride to Tehran’s rescue, and while Gulf states don’t want instability, they are not distraught to see an old rival weakened.But not least in the reckoning is surely that Mr Netanyahu, who survives politically through military action, only narrowly survived a Knesset vote this week. The government also faces mounting international condemnation over its war crimes in Gaza – though the US and others allow those crimes to continue. It is destroying the nation’s international reputation, yet may bolster domestic support through this campaign.The obvious question is the future of a key Iranian enrichment site deep underground at Fordo, which many believe Israel could not destroy without US “bunker busters”. If Israel believes that taking out personnel and some infrastructure is sufficient to preclude Iran’s nuclear threat, that is a huge and perilous gamble. This attack may well trigger a rush to full nuclear-armed status by Tehran – and ultimately others – and risks spurring more desperate measures in the meantime. Surely more likely is that Israel hopes to draw in Washington, by persuading it that Iran is a paper tiger or baiting Tehran into attacking US targets.“My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier,” Mr Trump claimed in his inaugural speech. Yet on Friday he said was not concerned about a regional war breaking out due to Israel’s strikes. Few will feel so sanguine. The current incoherence and incomprehensibility of US foreign policy fuels instability and risks drawing adversaries towards fateful miscalculations.

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      Detainees at New Jersey immigration center revolt as chaos unravels

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      Unrest and protests have erupted in and around a controversial immigration detention center in New Jersey, with police and federal officials clashing with protesters after detainees reportedly pushed down a wall in revolt at the conditions they are being held in.About 50 detainees pushed down a wall in the dormitory room of the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, New Jersey, on Thursday night, according to an immigration lawyer representing one of the men held there.“It’s about the food, and some of the detainees were getting aggressive and it turned violent,” the lawyer, Mustafa Cetin, told NJ Advance Media. “Based on what he told me it was an outer wall, not very strong, and they were able to push it down.”Following the uprising, a crowd of protesters gathered at the facility and videos posted on social media show them blocking vehicles being driven by law enforcement officials and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents who sought to quell the disturbance.Amid the chaos, there were reports that four inmates were unaccounted for on Friday morning. A group called NJ Alliance for Immigrant Justice said that there were “reports of gas, pepper spray, and a possible fire” inside the center.On Friday afternoon, the US Department of Homeland Security said that authorities are looking for four detainees who escaped from the federal detention center and additional resources were bring brought in to look for them, the Associated Press reported.Delaney Hall is run by a private prison company called GEO Group, which holds a $60m contract with the Trump administration to hold as many as 1,000 people at a time within the facility and has a controversial history over conditions at centers.The center reopened following a refurbishment last month but has faced controversy, with local politicians claiming that it doesn’t hold the correct work permits and certificate of occupancy, posing safety risks. GEO Group has denied this.Shortly after its reopening, LaMonica McIver, a Democratic representative, was arrested after joining an oversight visit of the center. On Wednesday, McIver was indicted and charged with assaulting and interfering with immigration officers, charges which she has called “a brazen attempt at political intimidation”.Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, was also arrested at the site in that incident, for trespassing, but those charges have been dropped.“We are concerned about reports of what has transpired at Delaney Hall this evening, ranging from withholding food and poor treatment, to uprising and escaped detainees,” Baraka said in a statement about the latest unrest at the center.He added: “This entire situation lacks sufficient oversight of every basic detail, including local zoning laws and fundamental constitutional rights.”Ice has yet to comment on the situation at Delaney Hall. The clashes follow protests in several US cities over the detention of migrants and others by the Trump administration, most notably in Los Angeles, where Trump has deployed the military, a extremely rare and controversial move that is being challenged in court by the state of California. More

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      What Elon Musk wore to the White House foreshadowed his downfall

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      In case you missed it, Elon Musk and Donald Trump have fallen out.For some – and in particular anyone looking at the tech billionaire’s White House wardrobe – this will come as little surprise. Long before anyone hit send on those inflammatory tweets, or tensions spilled out over Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB), Musk’s political downfall was written in the stitching.During his time in the White House, Musk shunned the sartorial rulebook of someone at the shoulder of a president, where suits and ties are the common code. He wore dark Maga baseball caps at the Oval Office and told a rally in New York: “I’m not just Maga, I’m dark gothic Maga.” Then there were the T-shirts with slogans such as “Occupy Mars”, “Tech Support” and “Dogefather”. At campaign rallies, commentators noted he looked “more like he belonged at a Magic: The Gathering tournament than a political event”, his dress sense the style equivalent of the k-holes that it is claimed Musk frequently disappeared into.The more casual styles of Musk and his Silicon Valley tech bros – where stiff collars are eschewed in favour or crewnecks, tailored jackets softly pushed out the door by padded gilets – are light years away from those of the suited-and-booted US Capitol.But if Musk’s clobber signalled a new DC power shift, it also spoke to different norms. “Disruption might be a badge of honour in the tech space,” says DC-based image coach and style strategist Lauren A Rothman, “but in politics, chaos has a much shorter runway. The White House has been around for a long time. We’re not going to stop wearing suits … This is the uniform.”View image in fullscreenAll of this dressing down, dressing objectively badly and dressing “inappropriately” has form. Consider, if you can bear to, the case of Dominic Cummings. The former Boris Johnson aide subjected Westminster to dishevelment, Joules gilets, beanies, Billabong T-shirts and tote bags advertising the 1983 gothic-inspired horror novel The Woman in Black. He wasn’t just a Tory, he was a gothic horror Tory.As Jonathan Freedland, the Guardian columnist and host of the Guardian’s Politics Weekly America podcast, notes: “Dressing down is usually a power move in politics, just as it is in the boardroom: only the most powerful can get away with it.” That was, he says, the message Cummings sent “when he roamed Number 10 in a gilet: ‘You lot are worker bees who have to wear a uniform, whereas I’m so indispensable to the man at the top, I can wear what I like’.”It was the same with Musk, whose threads were a flipped bird to all those Oval Office stiffs in suits. As Rothman puts it: “His uniform of casual defiance stands in sharp contrast to that traditionally suited corridor of political power.” And that contrast screams out his different, special status.Before him, there was “Sloppy Steve” Bannon, a man never knowingly under-shirted. On this side of the Atlantic, Freedland points to former David Cameron adviser Steve Hilton and his penchant for turning up to meetings barefoot: “ditching the shoes was an instant way of signalling his membership of the inner circle”.It’s that age-old question: who has the privilege to be scruffy? As Freedland puts it: “Musk was happy to stand next to the Resolute desk of the president looking like he was dressed for a gamers’ convention. That was his way of reminding everyone of his superior wealth and unique status, outside conventional politics.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenBut what Cummings and Musk share in sartorial disorder, they also share in political trajectories. Scruffy Icaruses who flew too close to the sun; their clothes a foreshadowing of their fall. Trump might talk about draining the swamp, but his Brioni suits are very much swamp-coded – plus, while Johnson might have had strategically unruly hair and ill-fitting suits as crumpled as a chip wrapper, suits they still were.Ultimately, nobody likes a bragger. Because dressing in a way in which your privilege is omnipresent if not outright stated, is a surefire way to piss people off. Not least Trump, who noted that Musk had “some very brilliant young people working for him that dress much worse than him, actually”, in an interview on Fox in February.“The contrast between Musk’s garb and Trump’s cabinet,” according to Freedland, “made them look and seem inferior: servants of the president rather than his equal. It was one more reason why more than a few in Trumpworld are glad to see the (poorly tailored) back of Elon Musk.”To read the complete version of this newsletter – complete with this week’s trending topics in The Measure and your wardrobe dilemmas solved – subscribe to receive Fashion Statement in your inbox every Thursday. More