President Donald Trump has faced barely any pushback from those within his Cabinet, having prioritized loyalty so intense that members have risked physical injury just to appease him, according to a report Friday.
Slate writer Ian Prasad Philbrick came to his conclusion after conducting an experiment: he purchased a pair of Florsheim Shoes, the same kind Trump had purchased for his entire Cabinet who are “afraid not to wear them,” a White House aide previously told The Wall Street Journal.
As part of his experiment, Philbrick walked 10 miles around Washington, D.C. in his new pair of Florsheim dress shoes – footwear that costs $145 and is “decidedly midtier” — and was left with significant “damage” to his feet.
“The balls of both feet and the ends of both pointer toes had been mashed into misshapen blisters,” Philbrick wrote. “The skin on both heels and a patch below my right pinkie had worn away, leaving behind angry pink abrasions. My feet were still aching when I boarded my flight home the next day.”
Trump has also reportedly purchased the shoes for his top officials without asking their shoe size, leading to Secretary of State Marco Rubio being spotted with what appears to be footwear that's far too large — shoes in which Rubio’s feet “were positively swimming,” Philbrick quipped.
Rubio was even mocked this week for having continued to wear the “too big” shoes by Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA), to which Rubio defensively insisted they “fit fine.”
That Trump’s cabinet was willing to “risk mangling their own feet” just to appease their boss, Philbrick concluded, was an apt metaphor for the Trump 2.0 administration as a whole.
“An ill-fitting pair of shoes turns out to be a fitting talisman of the political world we’ve collectively inhabited since 2016,” Philbrick wrote.
“In this world, a president who should be focused on passing legislation or negotiating with Iran is acting as his adjutants’ personal stylist – the most loyal of whom are so submissive that they’re willing to risk mangling their own feet just to follow in his footsteps. Our emperor may have no clothes. But he does have Florsheims.”