Another prolix online headline recently caught our attention, this one at the Fix, the Washington Post’s popular politics blog: “This may be the biggest shoe to drop from the Trump-Michael Cohen tape.” The piece argued that the subpoena of Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg is likely an important development in the Trump-Russia probe, but the author didn’t mention shoes dropping—that was evidently the work of the Fix’s headline-writers.
Come to think of it, shoes have been dropping all over the place since Trump became president. The expression, as readers likely know, refers to the common experience of hearing one’s upstairs neighbor arrive home and remove his shoes—first one shoe (thump), then a pause, then the other (thump). Hence waiting for some seemingly inevitable outcome is like waiting for the other shoe to drop.
In February, after Mueller’s indictment of 13 Russian nationals, defense attorney William Jeffress told Vanity Fair, “It’s hard to speculate” (which, in Washington, means it’s easy to speculate), but if Mueller “has been able to uncover that same kind of evidence on the hacking that he has been able to uncover on these campaign-type activities, then we’ve got another shoe to drop.” Around the same time former director of national intelligence James Clapper, evidently imagining a number of upstairs neighbors taking their shoes off in succession, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper, “I think there are other shoes to drop here.” And in mid-July, when Mueller indicted Russian intelligence officers for hacking the Democratic National Committee’s emails, former Obama Justice official Matt Miller told Mike Allen of Axios, “This is the biggest shoe to drop yet.” Miller, like the Fix’s headline-writer, seems to think dropping shoes get bigger and bigger. The very next day in the Post, law professor Randall Eliason reminded readers that “if Mueller does have evidence of American involvement in any of the Russian wrongdoing, that would be the logical next shoe to drop.” Shoes dropping in logical order!
The Trump-Russia story isn’t the only one to attract all these shoes, either. Art Hogan, market strategist at the investment bank B. Riley, expressed his relief to a CNBC reporter that trade wars were temporarily out of the news. “The pattern in the market,” he said, “is we react to the announcement, and as time passes we wait for the next shoe to drop.”
We’re not sure what all these shoes mean, but perhaps it’s helpful to remember that the idiom isn’t supposed to signify just any newsworthy event. It’s supposed to signify inevitability. And if there’s one thing we should have learned after 2016, it’s that in politics, nothing is inevitable.
