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hakohen
“Until JFK decided to appear at his inauguration without a hat, that was what everyone wore.”
This is a myth. JFK did in fact appear with a hat at his inauguration. Pictures are readily available online.
However he wore a tophat not a fedora. If we follow your argument though shouldn’t we wear a tophat and coat tails to davening?
The bottom line is hat and jacket is simply a uniform adopted by the yeshiva world. It has zero to do with “dressing up” though that is proably how it started. Most of us would not wear a hat to see the PResdient (unless it was in a rabbinic setting) There are many pictures available of R’ Moshe sherer Zl or today’s askanim visiting various presidents or legislators and rarely (though not never) are they wearing a hat.
for a tie you can make a stronger argument than a hat.