Politics of white guy's hats (i.e. stereotypes work, episode 638)

[Waterfall]

Imagine you see a white guy across a parking lot, so you can't read what if anything is on his hat.  He's not wearing a uniform or any huge logos, and he's not wearing camo. Can you roughly tell from just the hat what his politics probably are?

I think you can.

Cowboy hat: moderate or very conservative


Baseball cap - bent visor or mesh back: moderate or very conservative



Baseball cap - flat visor: moderate liberal


Castro hat: left-libertarian or very liberal


Beanie with visor: very liberal


Saggy beanie: very liberal


Non-saggy beanie: hard to say...


Fedora, pork pie, or similarly-sized brimmed hat (if worn by a white guy younger than 40): liberal


If the above is worn by a white guy older than 40, then he's a libertarian, unless he's older than 70, in which case he's a moderate conservative.

Flat cap: center- or right-libertarian


What else am I missing?

[Mr. Smith]

No hat = apolitical.

Nah, you've just moved into the politics of hair styles.

As for the OP: You forgot about berets, admittedly that's a pretty obvious lefty one.

[Waterfall]

You forgot about berets, admittedly that's a pretty obvious lefty one.

I don't know where you live [edit: duh, California!], but I never see white guys wearing berets. But there are a couple different kind of berets: there's the puffy one with the stem, which I guess would be worn by older gay guys who are into art and theatre (so almost certainly very liberal) and then there are the military-style ones with a flat side. If those aren't worn as part of a uniform then I'd guess it's probably being worn by a dopey high-schooler who thinks Che Guavara is an acceptable role model...so, very liberal again.

So yeah, leftist on both counts.

[Waterfall]

Only two hats mark someone as a conservative and basically all the other ones mark someone as a liberal? Can that be right???

BTW, if I have to be outside for longer than a few minutes when it's really cold I have one of these that I always wear (mine has real fur):



I have no idea what people would guess of my politics based on that.

[muon2]

Waterfall - you created two identical threads. I posted in the other one, but since then others have posted here. I'll move my content here and let you delete the other one.

I rarely go out without a hat. I mostly wear flat caps, unless it's very casual when a ball cap is most likely. I have brimmed hats in my collection, too, but I only wear them when the occasion suggests it.

These are similar to the caps I mostly wear:

[dead0man]

I don't see most of those, (who the hell wears a cowboy hat in 2017? except for poser cowboys going to cowboy bar on the weekend?....why yes, I do have a problem with fake cowboys, why do you ask?) except baseball caps and beanies and there is no clear and obvious political bent with the people that wear them.  I don't trust anybody in a new hat though.

[Waterfall]

I don't see most of those, (who the hell wears a cowboy hat in 2017? except for poser cowboys going to cowboy bar on the weekend?....why yes, I do have a problem with fake cowboys, why do you ask?) except baseball caps and beanies and there is no clear and obvious political bent with the people that wear them.  I don't trust anybody in a new hat though.

I see guys in cowboy hats from time to time (I live in the lower Midwest).

[Ban my account ffs!]

Only two hats mark someone as a conservative and basically all the other ones mark someone as a liberal? Can that be right???

BTW, if I have to be outside for longer than a few minutes when it's really cold I have one of these that I always wear (mine has real fur):



I have no idea what people would guess of my politics based on that.

I also have one of those with fur, but not leather.  I don't care what people guess my politics to be based on that.  It keeps my ears warm enough to sweat when it's like -25*F outside.. sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and sometimes hats are just for warmth

[angus]

My son has one like that as well.  We weren't thinking about politics when we bought it, but rather about his health.  

I agree with the rest of your post as well.  A beret is a beret, a cowboy hat is a cowboy hat, a fedora is a fedora, and most of the time people wear hats just to keep warm, or to keep the sun out of their eyes when they're swinging a bat or pitching a ball or riding a horse.  Or, in some cases, to cover up a bald spot.  I don't recall ever making assumptions about anyone's politics based on their hats.

I'll add that I rarely wear hats, even when my ears are about to freeze and break off--I just don't like hathead--and I'm definitely not apolitical.  I bitch about the system and have my favorites and least favorites just like people who wear hats do.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Certain sections of the right have adopted certain styles of the left (surprise, surprise); meanwhile, some with right-wing views may still be "hip" style-wise--think of a son of Macomb who nonetheless likes EDM and joggers. Of course, I, like many people, like to ascribe worldviews to people I see on the street, and maybe they're mostly right, but they're certainly never "all right".

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Certain sections of the right have adopted certain styles of the left (surprise, surprise); meanwhile, some with right-wing views may still be "hip" style-wise--think of a son of Macomb who nonetheless likes EDM and joggers. Of course, I, like many people, like to ascribe worldviews to people I see on the street, and maybe they're mostly right, but they're certainly never "all right".

That certainly sounds plausible, but I would be curious to see a couple more examples of that.

[LLR]

Make America Great Again hat: conservative

[Waterfall]

I don't care what people guess my politics to be based on that.  It keeps my ears warm enough to sweat when it's like -25*F outside.. sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and sometimes hats are just for warmth

My son has one like that as well.  We weren't thinking about politics when we bought it, but rather about his health.  

I agree with the rest of your post as well.  A beret is a beret, a cowboy hat is a cowboy hat, a fedora is a fedora, and most of the time people wear hats just to keep warm, or to keep the sun out of their eyes when they're swinging a bat or pitching a ball or riding a horse.  Or, in some cases, to cover up a bald spot.  I don't recall ever making assumptions about anyone's politics based on their hats.

Certain sections of the right have adopted certain styles of the left (surprise, surprise); meanwhile, some with right-wing views may still be "hip" style-wise--think of a son of Macomb who nonetheless likes EDM and joggers. Of course, I, like many people, like to ascribe worldviews to people I see on the street, and maybe they're mostly right, but they're certainly never "all right".

1. Of course we don't choose hats based on our politics! (As I said in the OP: not counting hats with explicit political messages on them, such as the MAGA cap.) Rather, I think our choice of hats and our politics are somewhat derived from a common source: some mix of tribal identity, personality traits, and other stuff, maybe even including something as basic as our testosterone levels.

2. We're talking about stereotypes here, people. They're not accurate 100% of the time, and in some cases maybe not even 50% of the time, but they are usually accurate enough of the time that our brains can use them to allow us to make tough calls quickly; tough calls such as gathering metadata about strangers at a distance. Back on the African Savannah we needed to figure out whether the hominid on the other side of the watering hole was a friend or foe, and if we weren't close enough to talk or read facial expressions then we'd probably end up judging based on whether his jewelry and tattoos marked him as part of a friendly tribe.

3. Obviously if a guy in a cowboy hat starts saying liberal things then we know he does not fit the stereotype about guys in cowboy hats. We shouldn't tell him "You can't say that, you're wearing a cowboy hat!" We have to remember that most men's hats are functional and don't necessarily convey a political affiliation.

4. Testing out stereotypes is fun! I'm personally a huge fan of games like this and I delight in how accurate stereotypes so often are. It's exciting to find the little hidden keystones that hold together lots of different variables that might otherwise seem random, and in my opinion it speaks to the marvelous and splendid orderliness of our universe. (Which we should enjoy while it lasts because entropy.)

[Mr. Smith]

Make America Great Again hat: conservative

If Trump goes and stays underwater, I could see liberals taking it over for irony's sake.