The relationship between Donald Trump and facial hair is a multifaceted topic, encompassing personal preferences, political considerations, and historical context. While Trump himself has always maintained a clean-shaven appearance, his views on facial hair in others, particularly in the political sphere, have been a subject of much discussion and speculation.
Trump's Clean-Shaven Preference
Donald Trump is known for his aversion to facial hair, a preference that has reportedly influenced his personnel decisions. The US president Donald Trump doesn’t appear to have ever had facial hair. He is so into the clean-shaven look that he reportedly decided not to nominate lawyer and diplomat John Bolton for secretary of state because he didn’t like the look of his mustache. Some observers don’t think Trump could grow a beard even if he wanted to.
Facial Hair in American Politics: A Historical Overview
Presidential facial hair is a reflection of the times. To fully understand Trump's stance, it's essential to examine the historical context of facial hair in American politics. The last time facial hair graced the face of a US president was March 4, 1913. This was the day William Howard Taft and his voluminous mustache were replaced by the clean-shaven Woodrow Wilson in the nation’s highest office.
The Golden Age of Presidential Facial Hair
Taft was the end of a run of great facial hirsuteness in our nation’s highest office. Abraham Lincoln started the trend in 1861, when he entered office as the first president with a beard or mustache-only sideburns had previously appeared in the White House. From 1861 to 1913, nine of eleven US presidents had facial hair.
The following table shows which US presidents had sideburns, beards, and mustaches. If you don’t think sideburns count as facial hair, tell that to John Quincy Adams’ mutton chops.
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The Decline of Facial Hair in Politics
The 20th century was generally a clean shaven one in the US-excepting brief surges in beards in the 1960s and 70s, and mustaches in the 1980s. This could be attributed to sanitary concerns: New theories about hygiene and disease transmission put beards under suspicion. One 2010 political science study suggested that since women won the right to vote, facial hair became less popular among politicians because of its associations with domestic violence and chauvinism. “Men with facial hair are seen as more supportive of use of violence and women and feminists are less likely to vote for them,” the paper’s authors write.
Today, only two out of 80 men in the US Senate have beards-the mustachioed Independent Angus King of Maine and Republican John Hoeven of North Dakota. Not one of the 20 favorites to win the presidency in 2020 on betting site Paddy Power currently has facial hair.
The Case of John Bolton
Soon after Donald Trump passed over bristle-brush-stached former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton as his pick for secretary of state, the Washington Post quoted an anonymous Trump associate speculating as to why the president-elect may have done so: “Donald was not going to like that mustache. …
The Counterargument: Masculinity and Aggression
But central casting, in the guise of Fox News, has encouraged the president to reconsider this prejudice, and having done so, he’s unlikely to regret it. Trump may think he’s mustache-averse, but what he’s likely to realize over the course of the next few months is that this particular form of facial hair - in addition to Mr. Bolton’s established track record for bellicosity - can signal a tendency toward the sort of masculine impulsiveness and aggression that is dear to Mr. Trump.
The Potential Return of Facial Hair to the Vice Presidency
Republican Senator JD Vance of Ohio could become the first vice president with facial hair in nearly a century if former President Donald Trump retakes the presidency in November. On Monday, the 39-year-old junior senator was announced as Trump's running mate on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Vance, who could become the first millennial vice president, would also bring back facial hair to one of the highest elected offices in the nation.
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Trump's Mixed Signals on Vance's Facial Hair
Before the RNC, Trump was asked to respond to a report in the conservative news site The Bulwark on whether Vance's facial hair would hurt his chances to be VP. Trump said no and that Vance looked "good.""He looks like a young Abraham Lincoln," Trump told Fox News' Brian Kilmeade on July 10.
The Psychology of Facial Hair in Politics
Rebekah Herrick, a professor of political science at Oklahoma State University, published a scholarly article in April 2015 titled, “Why Beards and Mustaches are Rare for Modern Politicians.” Among her paper’s conclusions: “Male politicians may need to think strategically before they put away their razors, especially if they are concerned about attracting women voters. Our experiments certainly suggest that such voters are likely to stereotype bearded or mustachioed candidates as more masculine and less supportive of feminist policies, but less inclined to deploy force.”
The Upsides of Facial Hair
Facial hair has its upsides, too. “It’s well known that you can’t have a small president in this country,” Herrick, who has also written about the political effects of facial shape, says. More recently, in 2008, when the economy started to tank, there was a notable regrowth of facial hair. “Some people,” Herrick says, “thought men were trying to save money by not buying razors. Over the past half-century, beards and mustaches have made us reflexively think, in turn, of cult leader Charles Manson, baseball pitcher Dennis Eckersley, actor Tom Selleck, Al Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden and the original Brawny man. Dangerous, debonair, dastardly, doped-up: facial hair lends an air of intrigue. A 2013 study published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior found that the bushier a man’s beard, the more “masculine” he appeared to members of both sexes.
The Downsides of Facial Hair
The negative associations that come with modern facial hair, however, seem to Herrick to far outweigh the positive for the president-elect. There’s a reason, after all, we haven’t seen a beard on a president since Taft. Hitler, Stalin, Castro, Hirohito: whiskered adversaries all. “There’s also,” Herrick adds, “the thinking that men with beards are trying to hide or cover up something.”
Donald Trump's Hair: A Separate Saga
Donald Trump's hair has been a subject of much discussion and speculation throughout his career. His hair has been subject to speculation and ridicule; during his 2016 presidential campaign, it was the subject of much public discussion, wherein it was asserted to be a toupée or comb over. In a 2011 interview, Trump said, "I get a lot of credit for comb-overs. But it's not really a comb-over. It's sort of a little bit forward and back. I've combed it the same way for years.
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A Visual History of Trump's Hair
The evolution of Trump's hairstyle can be traced through various photos:
- 1976: Considering the era and the man, this is a remarkably tasteful, organic-looking hairstyle. Nevertheless, the hard-charging young developer appears to be studying the older man’s pate-management techniques with an eye, as always, to the future.
- 1985: Trump, pictured with his first wife, Ivana, is now parting his hair from left to right, as he does to this day (to the extent that the complex superstructure that is Trump’s hair can be said to have something as straightforward as a “part”). This is believed to be the last picture in which more than three-quarters of an inch of Trump’s forehead was exposed to public view.
- Circa 1990: That is not a lobotomy scar on the side of the billionaire’s head but rather a severe and deep part that suggests a “problem area” on the top and back of his scalp is being compensated for.
- 1991: Note that Trump’s “hairline” is now nearly contiguous with his eyebrows. Is this evidence of the scalp reduction he allegedly underwent in 1989, according to divorce papers filed by Ivana and recounted in the 1993 biography Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump?
- 1993: Strangely, the hair on the left side of the groom’s head is a full half foot taller than on the right. This imbalance may be the result of the three or four inter-dimensional, gravity-warping vortexes clearly visible in the back of his head.
- 1991: This inadvertent overhead view reveals that, claims to Swedish ancestry notwithstanding, Trump is in fact part unicorn.
- 1999: Observe how the businessman’s hair breaks over his collar like a viscous, bird-killing oil slick. Why is J.F.K. Jr. the one wearing a hat?
- Around 2000: Trump at an outdoor event in around 2000, after ordering his stylist to color his hair and eyebrows a then-chic shade known as “Cigar-Stained-Teeth Blonde.” Tellingly, the wind affects but a single quadrant of Trump’s hair, as if the rest were bolted down like a storm cellar door.
- 2002: In this 2002 photograph, Trump has changed his hair color to “Burnt-Cheetos Auburn.” As well, the conventional hairsprays and salon products of years past appear to have given way to rubber cement and snot.
- 2003: Trump, shown here, in 2003, with Apprentice producer Mark Burnett, experiments with white roots and light filaments wrapped around the back of his head. Historians call this developer’s “middle-aged club kid” phase.
- 2004: At this point, we’re just fucking with your stomach. Had lunch yet?