Right now the United States is an iffy proposition, IMHO. We may not survive the next four, or God help us, eight years.
Yet it cannot be a coronation
No, what we have here is a mass adoration, or a mass idolation.
hats have been optional since 1960, when John F. Kennedy held a silk top hat but did not wear it
I heard once that JFK was the reason men stopped wearing hats. No matter what you think of his Presidency, at least he did one good thing for this country (I HATE wearing a hat).
“so help me God Allah"
I have seen this asserted for years and lazily absorbed it without pausing to think about it. Upon reflection, however, I doubt that something as fundamental as the hat was overthrown by anything as ephemeral as a fashion plate politician.
I suspect hats went out because of the overwhelming modern predominance of indoor work and the ascendancy of the automobile in Suburban Nation. In most parts of the country, one simply doesn't need a hat to get from the parking lot into the office (although there are the occasional really cold mornings when most of us at least briefly wish we had one).
A few years back, I was lucky enough to be able to walk to work. It took a couple of years but I eventually rediscovered the hat. A straw hat makes a world of difference under the sun and a good fedora and/or woolen walking hat puts February in a whole new light. The tradeoff is pretty simple: are you outdoors long enough to be willing to accept hat hair the balance of the day?
Attributing hatlessness to JFK is probably just another piece of Kennedy idolatry heaved up by iconographers anxious to credit him with something tangible aside from the Bay of Pigs, the Vietnam War, and prostitution in the White House.
The fact is that men were gradually abandoning the hat in the twentieth century, particularly after WWII. Also, JFK did wear a hat as least as often as men of his generation were wearing hats at the time. JFK was careful not to be photographed wearing a hat because he did not like the effect it had on his appearance.
