The Senate yesterday unanimously passed a bill that requires members to follow a dress code that will include a coat, tie, and slacks for men. Just a bit less than three weeks ago, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, in a vulgar and obnoxious capitulation to lowered standards of public conduct and a blatant endorsement of the King’s Pass had ruled that all Senators could dress like Pennsylvania’s senatorial slob, John Fetterman, whose favorite attire is a sneakers shorts hoodie ensemble. This was an itsy-bitsy microcosm of what the party of Fetterman and Schumer are attempting to inflict on American society, and, incredibly, the vox populi rebelled. It seems that a lot of Americans don’t like the idea of their elected representatives in the U.S. Capitol appearing in public dressed like Frankenstein’s Monster on vacation.

Oh, the usual left-wing hacks in the news media rushed to Schumer’s defense: CNN’s Elena Sheppard, for example, issued a fatuous opinion piece about why she had “changed her mind” about the elimination of the dress code for the people who formally represent American democracy, values and traditions. Her stated reasons? Rationalizations, like “Over the years, other dress code changes have occurred in the Senate without disaster.” Her real reason? If progressives are going to transform American government and society into their Marxist paradise, every decision and policy, no matter how foolish, badly reasoned or trivial, must be hailed as progress.

But it quickly became clear that Schumer’s edict embarrassed the public, and photos like this…

…didn’t help.

Democrats really haven’t figured out the cognitive dissonance scale yet. Republicans quickly attacked the slobbified dress code, and Democrats tried the “those stuffy, old-fashioned Republicans” ploy. But Democrats and progressives were attaching themselves to something ugly and dumb, while Republicans were endorsing basic respect for our institutions and our government. That hasn’t been rejected by the public—not yet. Democrats were risking sliding down Dr. Festinger’s scale, and for what? As Sir Thomas More might say, if he still had his head, “Why Chuck, it profit a party nothing to give its soul for censorship, racial spoils, open borders and abortion on demand. . . but for Fetterman’s hoodies?

So, seemingly devoid of humiliation, Schumer issued a statement approving the return to civility as if had nothing to do with its abandonment in the first place. “Though we’ve never had an official dress code, the events over the past week have made us all feel as though formalizing one is the right path forward,” the Majority Leader said. “I deeply appreciate Senator Fetterman working with me to come to an agreement that we all find acceptable, and of course I appreciate Sen. Manchin and Sen. Romney’s leadership on this issue.”

They were the sponsors of the anti-slob bill.

It’s a small victory in the culture wars to be sure, but still: there is hope.

And doesn’t Sen. Fetterman look nice now?