Living in not just the bleakest but dumbest timeline, we must now witness the “off the charts clownfuckery” that is the spectacle of quivering, grown-ass Trump lackeys faithfully, fearfully shuffling around the halls of power in his fave “old-man-from-Queens” shoes – most ill-sized – foisted on them in some weird submission ritual by a sociopath with daddy issues. What he evidently doesn’t know: A. They’re made in China, B. Their company is suing him for his illegal tariffs. Up next: Kim Jong Un haircuts for all.
The latest manifestation of Trump’s petty megalomania came to light when astute observers noticed that first Lil Marco Rubio, then other White House minions were sporting the same often-too-large shoes, which all turned out to be the $145, black oxford Florsheims regularly worn and touted by Trump. In a cringe origin story recounted by cringe JD Vance, the Favorite Florsheims Saga began at a December meeting in the Oval Bordello when Trump, always laser-focused, began staring at people’s feet and abruptly declared, “You guys have shitty shoes.” He asked their shoe sizes. He (likely) ignored/forgot them. The shoes started arriving. He mercilessly badgered them: “Did you get the shoes?” And the dutiful flunkies, having already “left their manhood pickled in a golden jar on Trump’s desk,” took on the latest indignity of clomping around in their sadist dad’s shoes.
Rubio, Vance, Hegseth, Duffy, Lutnick, Lindsey Graham, Sean Hannity. “All the boys have them,” said a female White House official. “It’s hysterical, because everybody’s afraid not to wear them.” Beware trump bearing gifts: Armchair analysts took the shoe pageantry and ran with it. It’s an ugly game of subjugation, an abuser’s way of exhibiting dominance like the belligerent handshake, the belittling nicknames, the savage put-downs if any inferior dares to question or stray. It’s a piece of “exquisite and complex satire” about the juvenile male anxiety over penis size. It’s a humiliation ritual by a small, hollow, clueless, malignant narcissist with “a black hole of insecurity for a dog shit soul” whose only vestige of identity is a vulgar, outlandish brand – fake hair, fake tan, golf cap, red tie, beloved outdated “mall shoes” – he flaunts before his cowering vassals.
Historically, it’s also a classic move by totalitarian leaders intent on establishing both political and psychological fealty. See Mao jackets, Heil Hitlers, Stalin humiliating the clumsy Khrushchev by making him dance at his parties, Trump’s own Cabinet meetings become groveling, ring-and-ass-kissing circle jerks. Shoes can be a potent symbol in a performance: Khrushchev, in power, banging his shoe at the UN to punctuate his threat, “We will bury you”; an Iraqi protester hurling one, then two “ritually unclean” shoes at Bush – who deftly dodged – during a Baghdad presser in the ultimate sign of contempt; clowns of any variety, from circus to MAGA, rendered most ridiculous by their flapping shoes. Imagine preening Pete Hegseth, who just banned photos of himself insufficiently hot, with his tight suits and he-man Nazi tattoos, squeezed into or swimming in sloppy clunkers.
Adding insult to injury for these lame heroes of the manosphere, Florsheims, “a brand you last saw when you were cleaning out your dead grandpa’s room and they were under his bed,” are uncool. Like most things, they’re also the brainchild of immigrants, launched in Chicago in 1892 by German immigrant Sigmund Florsheim and his eldest son Milton. At its peak through two World Wars, a $5 pair of “genuine Florsheims” reportedly sold every 4 seconds; a timely gag in the great Chinatown, set in 1937, has Jack Nicholson’s Jake Gittes wading through diverted muddy water and scowling, “Goddamn Florsheims!” Its website boasts of “a reputation for being at the forefront of the newest trends while staying true to a legacy (of) quality craftsmanship”; in truth, they’re now mostly found in downscale shopping malls and discount stores, struggling to escape a rep as relics of the past.
Today, Florsheim’s belongs to parent company Weyco Group Inc. Unsurprisingly – so much again for the Klan-redolent “America First” mantra – they’re made overseas in India, China, Cambodia, Dominican Republic. They seem to have a reasonably modern (sorry, “woke”) worldview, with Black models and a Sustainability In Action program. And they’re suing Trump – atypically, not just multiple federal agencies, but Trump himself – seeking refunds plus interest for the “unprecedented power grab” of his unlawful, unilaterally levied tariffs “without notice, public comment or Congressional authorization.” SCOTUS already struck them down last month, citing the possible “mess” of upcoming “refunds of billions of dollars”; on March 4, a U.S. Trade Court judge basically said have at it when he ordered the regime to start paying those ill-begotten billions.
For now, the case is stayed. But many other companies are likewise demanding their money back, and so is a coalition of two dozen states. As the pitchforks come out, online wags stay busy coming up with shoe puns: toeing the line, holding your tongue, comments laced with wit, heels with no soles, a new ad for Sieg Heels: “Nobody puts the step in goosestep like Sieg Heels!” Meanwhile, our own Führer’s debased lickspittles stumble across the world stage, tripping on their own moral cowardice en route to the apocalypse. They just need to remember Solzhenitsyn’s elemental advice in Gulag Archipelago: “Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding.” Or, God forbid, flapping those clown shoes.
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This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.