While the New Balance (NB) sneaker brand became popular for pioneering the “chunky shoes” style, it attracted attention caused by a political controversy.

While NB’s 100% “Made in America” label proved useful in the company’s bid to forge an important contract as a major supplier of sneakers for the U.S. Armed Forces, it took some political wrangling before the deal came into fruition.

NB founder and chairman Jim Davis wanted the “Made in America” claim as the main distinction of NB sneakers from other brands that competed with NB’s “chunky shoes” style; whilst also citing the economic benefits of providing employment to American workers. That is why Mr. Davis was quite vocal in opposing the Obama administration’s support of the Trans Pacific Partnership, which embraced offshore labor outsourcing.

Although offshore business process outsourcing (BPO) can greatly reduce direct labor cost by paying wages based on the currency of countries like China and Vietnam, BPO also means displacing work opportunities for local American workers.

That being the case, the NB founder was more inclined to support Donald Trump, whose promise was to “Make America Great Again” by keeping U.S. employment opportunities available only to Americans. Unfortunately, Mr. Davis’ vocal political support for Trump was misconstrued by a group of neo-nazi Trump supporters, who began declaring New Balance as the “official shoes of the white Americans.”

The statement of course created a negative impact as it gave the impression that New Balance in turn supported Trump’s racism and bigotry as well. Despite efforts by the company’s public affairs department to clarify the issue, damage was already done.

More so, when the company finally won the U.S. military contract during Trump’s administration. As a result, the popular “chunky shoes” became politically tainted.

The Truth Behind New Balance’s Deal with the U.S.Military

Actually, the move to purchase American-made shoes started in 2014, when in January of that year, the Department of Defense (DOD) initiated a market research for the availability of 100% American-made shoes. The main purpose of which was to make the U.S. Armed Forces compliant with the 1941 Berry Amendment, which includes defense procurement among those subject to domestic source restriction.

Based on a press report released thereafter, the Defense Logistics Agency reported that they found four firms that can produce and supply American-made athletic shoes for military personnel. Among the four companies ascertained as having the capability to produce 100% U.S.-made athletic footwear is New Balance.

However, the DOD initiative to comply with the Berry Amendment was stalled during the Obama administration due to oppositions coming from the White House and the Pentagon. The latter wanted to keep its practice of simply issuing vouchers as a way of providing athletic shoes based on personal choices.

When Trump assumed office as president in 2017, a bipartisan resolution long introduced by Congressional Representatives from Maine and Massachusetts, finally passed approval. Based on the 1941 Berry Amendment, the new bill orders the U.S. military to discard the voucher system and instead issue American-made athletic shoes to its military personnel.

The Popularity of Chunky Shoes Enabled NB to Rise Above the Political Controversy

In the spring of that year, New Balance and 2 other companies won contracts to supply the U.S. Armed Forces the athletic shoes that will be issued to members of the military. Still, market reports say that the U.S. military contract reflects only a minimal portion of the 3 million sneakers produced by New Balance every year, which denotes that the company was able to rise above the 2016 political controversy.

After all, the chunky style sneakers remained popular among adult males that it subsequently gained popularity as the “dad shoes.” In 2019, as the trend saw an increased demand from the younger generation, which was helped by the fact that several famous personalities posted Instagram photos in which they sported the latest in NB’s chunky shoes like the new nb 993 edition.


After the Founders of the American Republic drafted and ratified the U.S. Constitution they didn’t imagine a role for political parties. Really, they hunted through different constitutional structures — for example separation of powers among the executive, judicial and legislative offices; federalism; and indirect election of the president with an Electoral College — to jumpstart the new republic from parties and factions.

Regardless of the Founders’ intentions, the United States in 1800 became the first state to come up with nascent political parties arranged a nationwide foundation to do the transfer of executive power from 1 faction to another through an election. The growth and growth of political parties that followed were closely connected to this growth of voting rights. From the first days of this republic, only male property owners could vote, but restriction started to erode from the early 19th century as the consequence of legislation, the development of cities, along with other democratizing forces, like the abrupt expansion of the nation. Over the years, the right to vote has been extended to ever-larger amounts of the adult inhabitants as constraints based on land ownership, race, and gender were removed. As the electorate expanded, the political parties evolved into mobilizing the expanding mass of voters since the way of political management. Political parties became more institutionalized to do this crucial endeavor. Therefore, parties in America appeared as part of their democratic growth, and, starting in the 1830s, they had been more firmly established and strong.

Now the Republican and Democratic parties — the two of these heirs into predecessor parties in the 18th and 19th centuries — dominate the political procedure. With rare exceptions, both big parties dominate the presidency, the Congress, the state legislatures. For example, each president since 1852 was a Republican or a Democrat, also at the post-World War II era, both big parties’ share of this vote for president has dropped near 95 percent. Rarely does anyone of these 50 states select a person who isn’t a Democrat or a Republican? The amount of independent or third-party members of Congress or of state legislatures is very low.

Recently, increasing numbers of individual voters categorize themselves as “separate,” and they’re allowed to enroll to vote as in several nations. Nevertheless, based on opinion surveys, even people who state they are independents generally have partisan leanings toward one party or the other.

An exception to the general principle is located at the neighborhood level, especially in little towns and cities where applicants might not be asked to announce any party association or might run within a record of like-minded office-seekers beneath the banner of a specific neighborhood initiative — for example downtown redevelopment or college building.

Although both big parties arrange and dominate the authorities at the federal, state, and local levels, they are normally less ideologically cohesive and more programmatic compared to celebrations in several democracies. The capability of the significant parties to accommodate the country’s political growth has caused a pragmatic grasp of the political procedure.

Exactly why a Two-Party System?
As mentioned, Republicans and Democrats have dominated electoral politics as the 1860s. This unrivaled record of exactly the exact same two parties always controlling a country’s electoral politics reflects structural areas of the American political system in addition to the distinctive features of these parties.

The conventional arrangement for electing state and national legislators from the USA is that the”single-member” district program, wherein the offender receives a plurality of the vote (in other words, the best amount of votes in the particular voting district) wins the election. Even though a few countries need the vast majority of votes for election, but many officeholders could be chosen with a very simple plurality.

Unlike proportional systems widely used in most democracies, the single-member-district arrangement enables just one party to acquire in any particular district. Even the single-member system thus generates incentives to form widely based federal parties with adequate management skills, financial assets, and popular attraction to acquire legislative district pluralities all around the nation. Under this method, minor and third party applicants are disadvantaged. Coupled with minimum financial resources and hot financing usually do not acquire any representation in any way. Therefore, it’s difficult for new parties to accomplish a viable amount of ideology, and attain national clout, because of this “winner-take-all” construction of this U.S. electoral system.

Why two rather than, say, three well-financed federal parties? As part since two parties have been seen to give you the Republicans adequate option, in part because Americans historically have jeopardized political events, also in part, since both parties are amenable to fresh ideas.