Melania Trump, the most unpopular First Lady
Only Hillary Clinton, in 2001, walked out of the White House with a low rating
Donald Trump leaves the White House as one of the least popular presidents in history, but he does so in good company: his wife Melania scored the lowest first ladies score in a poll since Nixon, since polls have been made in about. On average, the wives of presidents had 71% favorable reviews when they left the White House. Melania has to settle for 42%, with a majority of 47% judging her negatively.
One might think that her husband's faults also fall on her wives, but this is not the case. Americans tend to always approve of the First Lady, who is not elected and finds herself faced with tasks she did not choose. Usually the President's wife, with the recent exceptions of Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, simply changes the decor of the White House, inaugurates community centers, caresses children, hugs mothers in need, and plant something new in the garden. She rarely pays for her husband's behavior: when Nixon was overwhelmed by Watergate, her wife Pat's ratings remained high. Even when Jimmy Carter hit its lowest point with 39% in 1979, his wife Rosalyn was at 59%. In 2009, George W. Bush had dropped to 35%, but his wife Laura was 67%.
Only Hillary Clinton, in 2001, left the White House with a low rating, steady at 52% and close to 39% of antipathy. But it was because she got involved in politics, she ran for the Senate and helped write some laws passed by her husband. Taking sides is never good for the popularity of the First Ladies, who are also called to represent that part of citizens who did not vote for their spouses.
Melania Trump is very far from the very high average approval rating of the other first women of the White House, judged negatively by only 21% of citizens and approved by 71%. CNN pointed out that the average difference between the two figures, + 40, is abysmal when compared to the - 5 of Trump's wife. Michelle Obama had 69% approval when she left Washington and Jill Biden, wife of the new president, starts with 58% without having done anything yet.
Since her arrival at the White House, which took place seriously behind her husband, Melania has never tried to make herself nice. It immediately seemed the emblem of the Reluctant First Lady, you could tell only by looking at her that she would have preferred to stay in another place and in other company. Some of her collaborators have described her in a perennial state of shock, never at ease, unable to adapt to the new role. "Mystery, missteps and absence" headlined the New York Times an article investigating her failure. The mystery still lingers over her modeling career and naked photos, as well as how much time she actually spent in Washington. There have been many missteps and the last one, not accompanying the Biden family on a visit to the White House, as has always been the tradition for outgoing first ladies, was the most unpleasant.
But first there was the jacket that read "I don't care, what about you?" after a visit to the Mexican border, the phrases about Christmas decorations ("I can't stand them"), the speech copied from Michelle Obama's, the ostentatious distance from Trump with the refusal to let himself be taken by the hand on official occasions. In America it is thought that, "right or wrong", a wife should always be close to her husband, not humiliate him in public. And then there was the Slovenian accent that she never managed to get rid of, the physical and emotional absence, the attention focused on the clothes, the chirping with the designers while the country was struggling with other problems.
Melania leaves the White House with a sigh of relief that many Americans share: without her, the building's temperature will rise several degrees. For four years it was believed that her cold attitude was due to the great difference that existed between her and Donald Trump's self-righteous egotism, but now it is more logical to think that the truth was different: perhaps there was not. just no difference.
