Why wearing pink was the wrong choice for the Democrats Tuesday night

And why AOC's purple sweater sent a more effective message of resistance

Wearing pink is great for a lot of things: winning an Oscar, going to a Taylor Swift concert, cheering yourself up on a gray Wednesday in March.

But as an act of resistance against creeping authoritarianism, wearing pink is—to paraphrase the great Selina Meyer—about as effective as using a croissant as a dildo.

Yet in what was intended as a visual protest against the administration, dozens of Democratic women donned the shade Tuesday night during Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of congress.

“Pink is a color of power and protest,” Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, told Time magazine. “It’s time to rev up the opposition and come at Trump loud and clear.”

She is right that it’s time for Democrats to step up their game against Trump, but dressing in coordinated colors is something you do during spirit week at school. Not when the president is trying to coronate himself king.

Pink is also an especially unfortunate sartorial choice, triggering unwelcome memories of the earnest pussy-hat era and feeling incongruously exuberant at a time when mournful black would have been more appropriate. And while Greta Gerwig’s Barbie helped recast the color pink (once associated with oppressive femininity) as a reclaimed symbol of feminism, Tuesday night felt like a nighmarish alternate version of that movie in which the entire country was ruled by the occupants of Ken’s Mojo Dojo Casa House.

More effective in capturing the “WTF-is-happening” mood of Tuesday night’s historically-rambling spectacle was Rep. Melanie Stansbury, the New Mexico Democrat who photobombed the president as he entered the chamber with a small, handwritten sign that conveyed what we were all thinking, “This is not normal.” (As if to prove her point, Rep. Lance Gooden, a Republican from Texas, aggressively swatted the paper out of her hands.) Rep. Al Green also channelled this feeling when he interrupted the president’s speech, angrily thrust his cane in the air—and was promptly removed from the chamber. It wasn’t a decorous moment, to be sure, but it was a fitting response to Trump’s lies. And it certainly got more attention than the pink suits.

Some Democrats held up small placards (“Musk Steals,” “Save Medicaid”), which made them look like bidders at a Sotheby’s auction rather than members of an organized opposition. Still others, like Rep. Maxwell Frost, walked out of the speech, which went on for an hour and 40 minutes and was filled with enough lies and prevarications to exhaust an army of fact-checkers. The Democrats’ incoherent messaging was indicative of a party that hasn’t figured out how to fight back.

Arguably the subtlest, yet most effective, political message came from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who opted not to attend the speech in person but took to Instagram late Tuesday night to share her reactions. For the occasion, she wore a handmade purple raglan sweater she has been knitting for weeks—a hobby she says she took up “to stop doomscrolling and reflect,” like a less bloodthirsty version of Madame Defarge. The sweater is the product of hours of thoughtful labor, and sent an optimistic message about coping in the Trump era: here’s what you can accomplish if you turn down the noise, ignore the ugly spectacle, and keep your hands busy creating.

With their sartorial choices, Republicans conveyed a message of fealty to Trump. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene did so most literally, sporting a jumbo red baseball hat emblazoned with the all-caps message “Trump was right about everything.” J.D. Vance, ever the obsequious toady, continued his habit of dressing as a Mini-Me Trump in a navy suit, white shirt and red tie. (Though, perhaps reluctant to upstage his boss with extra-long neckwear, he went with a tie that ended at his belt.) First lady Melania ditched the subversive Annie Hall cosplay she sported earlier this week for an icy gray suit with a shawl collar. Meanwhile, second lady Usha Vance remained as inscrutable as ever in a pale blush blazer. Was it pink? Was it white? What did it all mean? Who knows! But her dark hair retained visible gray streaks and was pulled back simply, suggesting that, at least aesthetically speaking, her MAGAmorphosis is still far from complete.

Meredith Blake is The Contrarian Culture Columnist