Autocrats just aren’t cool.
Go back in history, and what do you see? Nikita Khrushchev, the iron-fisted ruler of the old Soviet Union, decades ago. He once was so angry at a NATO meeting that he removed his shoe, brandished it, and threatened to pound it on a table. His shoe looked kind of worn and bureaucratic. Sorry Leader Khrushchev, not cool, at all.
Also Idi Amin, years ago, “popularly known as the ‘Butcher of Uganda,’” according to Wikipedia. He mostly was all decked out in military garb, covered in medals.
And more recently, there’s Putin. When he’s not wearing suits, rather bureaucratic-looking, like Kruschchev’s, he’s seen, shirtless, on a horse. OMG!
Let’s see, who else? Probably more than enough autocrats than you can shake a stick at, when you look elsewhere, in South America, Latin America and, where else? China? North Korea?
Don’t anyone tell America’s current POTUS to ship one of his neckties to autocrats… won’t make a bit of difference.
Where to see contemporary cool? On TV when folks are peacefully demonstrating, in America and elsewhere. You see people wearing fashion-forward face masks and what I believe, in the fashion world, are known as slinky headwraps.
Now, that’s cool! Cool fashion and a cool placard a peaceful demonstrator was holding, with the cool words…
Protest! Then vote!
Harvey Radin is former senior vice president in charge of corporate communications and media relations, Bank of America Western Region. He makes his home in Redwood City, CA.