Inspired by Michelle Obama, Melania Trump engages in plagiarism
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In a speech on Monday evening, the wife of the Republican candidate for the White House repeated passages almost verbatim from a speech by Michelle Obama at the Democratic convention in Denver in 2008. Irony of the story: Donald Trump keeps questioning the Obama values his wife is inspired by
It is arguably one of those campaign moments that will go down in the annals of the US presidential election. Wearing an original white gown designed by London-based Serbian-born designer Roksanda Ilincic who also dressed British First Lady Samantha Cameron, Melania Trump won audiences Monday night when she appeared on stage at the Republican convention.
Speaking to tens of thousands of people gathered in "The Q", the Cleveland sports hall, and some 40 million viewers, she sought to humanize her husband and White House candidate Donald Trump. An exercise in which many wives of presidential candidates have engaged, including Ann Romney and Michelle Obama. On Tuesday, however, Melania Trump, 46, faced a charge everyone is talking about in Cleveland: that of plagiarism.
The former Slovenian-born model, married to the New York billionaire since 2005, took up almost verbatim entire passages of a speech by Michelle Obama held at the Democratic convention in Denver in 2008 in which she recounted so very personal her story as an African American who grew up on the South Side of Chicago and that of her husband Barack. Shortly before her address on Monday, Melania Trump told NBC that she wrote the speech herself, "with as little help as possible." But it became clear that Donald Trump's campaign team had a lot of weight in the writing of the speech.
It was Jarrett Hill, a TV reporter attending a Starbucks in Los Angeles convention, who first discovered the glaring similarities between the two addresses when he tweeted: "Melania Trump must have liked Michelle Obama's speech at the convention of 2008, because she plagiarized it. "
Candidate Donald Trump’s staff sought to deny the obvious from the outset. Campaign manager Paul Manafort has even called the accusations of plagiarism "absurd", deeming it normal that words speaking of values are similar. In the face of media outcry, the New York tribune's team were forced to issue a press release at 2 a.m., noting that Melania Trump had "in some cases included fragments reflecting her own thinking." Paul Manafort even attempted to deflect the shot, saying, "When Hillary Clinton is threatened by a woman, the first thing she tries to do is destroy her."
Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus, however, did not hide his face. Someone may have to be "fired," he suggested. This mess seems to indicate a disturbing degree of improvisation within Donald Trump's campaign staff. By comparison, Michelle Obama was practicing her speech months before the meeting in Denver.
In his 1988 presidential campaign, current Vice President Joe Biden suffered plagiarism after repeating passages from speeches by Robert Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey and Briton Neil Kinnock. Monday’s incident is not without irony. Herald, from 2011, of the movement of "birthers", those Americans who doubt that Barack Obama was born in the United States (Hawaii), Donald Trump has continued to denigrate the values of the Democratic President, claiming that he does not don't like America.
When the head of the White House does not use the term "terrorism due to radical Islam," the New York billionaire is implying that he has malicious intentions towards the United States. In this case, it is nevertheless the values of sacrifice, work, respect for others and the conviction of pursuing one's (American) dream evoked by Michelle Obama that Melania Trump, naturalized American in 2006, embraced. inspired.
Journalist for The New Republic magazine, Brian Beutler tweeted that the case could have more consequences than it seems. It emphasizes the fact that Donald Trump is actually a candidate whose values are opposed to those he says he embodies. Melania Trump's speech Monday night is the "description of a campaign that fuels resentment and anger among whites and tries to capitalize on the work of a black woman, an African-American family that Trump and his supporters regularly belittle ”.
Evil tongues add more anecdotally that Melania Trump is the only one to have used a non-American stylist to address a convention of one of the two major American parties. As the New York Times points out, Michelle Obama wore the dresses of American designers Maria Pinto (2008) and Tracy Reese (2012). Cindy McCain and Ann Romney had also turned to an American stylist, Oscar de la Renta. But Donald Trump continues to criticize the Obama administration for having done nothing to develop employment in the United States and to promote "Made in America". The case finally undermines an argument that Donald Trump uses extensively against his rival Hillary Clinton for the lack of authenticity. By looting Michelle Obama's speech, Melania Trump did not set herself up as a guardian of honesty.
This mini-scandal arguably exceeds Melania Trump, who never liked to speak in public. The billionaire’s wife appeared sincere as she delivered her speech.
