WHAT WILL MELANIA TRUMP'S LEGACY BE?
Donald Trump's wife has left the East Wing as the first lady with the lowest approval rating in history.
In the strangest of America's inauguration days, a big question that persists is to what extent Donald Trump will continue to be a factor in our lives after his presidency. But take comfort, at least, that Melania Trump, dressed in funereal black and wearing sunglasses, says goodbye to all this by taking the helicopter that took her out of town.
She was planning her departure for weeks, even when her husband suggested that she could stay in the White House. While Trump was not accepting the election results - not accepting, in this case, means actively encouraging his ardent supporters to riot against the election results on Capitol Hill - Melania was quietly packing her bags. CNN reported that Melania had "been slowly preparing the move for weeks" and that shipping her things to Mar-a-Lago or the warehouse was a "semi-clandestine operation."
Determined to leave immediately, Melania let things like tradition or good manners weigh on her efforts. Apparently, she subcontracted the 80 thank you notes written to the staff who had cared for the family at the Casa, although they were signed by "Melania". A CNN source also said that, since a week before his transition to private citizenship, he had not established any kind of entity to keep his "Be Best" platform active, nor had he reached out to the incoming first lady, Jill. Biden, unlike most with his successors.
Four years ago, Melania came to the White House dressed in Ralph Lauren and with a gift, a "precious frame" from Tiffany & Co., according to her predecessor, Michelle Obama, that she had to struggle to understand the breaking of protocol. . It was an effort by Melania to do something kind and polite for the family, whose nationality she had questioned as part of a racist conspiracy theory. In the case of Melania, who knows if it is because she did not know that she should do it, because she did not have the necessary staff to organize it or, most likely, because she did not want to do it. (Jill Biden had already been a second lady, so she might have thought her successor wouldn't need such an introduction.) She is now leaving her job as the first lady with the lowest approval rating of all time.
However, Melania did offer a few words about her time at the White House in a prerecorded video released Monday, which contained the usual. "I have been inspired by the amazing Americans across the country, who lift up our communities with their kindness and courage, kindness and grace," she said. "The past four years have been unforgettable. As Donald and I conclude our time in the White House, I think of all the people in my heart and their incredible stories of love, patriotism and determination."
That was her only mention of her husband, the former president, and she denounced the violence while promoting her child welfare platform, Be Best. "Be passionate in everything you do," she said. "But always remember that violence is never the answer and will never be justified ... In any circumstance, I ask every American to be an ambassador for Be Best. To focus on what unites us, to rise above of what divides us, that always choose love over hatred, peace over violence, and others before oneself ".
Be Best, Melania's main project as first lady, received much criticism over the years. It started out big and bulky and a year and a half late, and never really took shape from there. Even the ungrammatical style of the name seemed like a trap. If Be Best is, in part, an anti-bullying program, what is the best way to point out that its title is skewed without making it appear that one is making fun of those for whom English is not their mother tongue? ?
The show became a mixed bag for whatever the first lady did, whether it was visiting addiction treatment centers, reading to children, or discussing Internet safety with teachers. She missed real job opportunities: She rarely lobbied Congress on behalf of Be Best's myriad efforts. In one memorable moment, she made no mention of the coronavirus to a roomful of educators at the annual conference of the National Association of Parents and Teachers in Virginia. It was March 10, 2020.
Though the pace of her appearances increased over the years, whether it was making stops for Be Best, campaigning with her husband, or traveling abroad with him or solo, she often spoke in prepared remarks, if at all. They were usually full of clichés, like the ones in her farewell speech, and seemed to serve to elude any detectable personality. That's why it's even more shocking to hear her speak out of the blue, her voice altered from hers, in a phone call with her old friend and assistant, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, who leaked her to the press last fall.
For lack of words, her clothes and her expressions used to speak for her. Possibly his greatest success during his time in the East Wing was driving the public and press crazy with gestures - a pat on the hand from the president, a smile that fades as quickly as it came - and with clothing choices that, in theory, They could have been a statement: the shirt with the pussy-bow, the pith helmet or the white trouser suit.
Think back to the inauguration four years ago. She looked like she was really going to do the job of first lady. She was wearing a Ralph Lauren (American designer! Business!) Suit in light blue. She had a mid-century silhouette and that's why she was reminiscent of Jackie O (beloved and sophisticated first lady!). She wore her hair in a sensible low bun (business again!). She seemed to be playing the role correctly.
But the actors come and go from the stage, and that's what Melania did. Any idea that she was going to support American fashion brands faded, as she never did so consistently. (Obama had made explicit efforts in that direction, mentioning J.Crew on the Jimmy Fallon show, for example, and dressing up as novice designers like Jason Wu at the first opening dance. Perhaps this is another odious comparison.)
As Winston Wolkoff told me and anyone who asked, Melania was frustrated by attempts to interpret the "meaning" of her clothing, to the point that in June 2018 she carried a message on her back at the border: a jacket. from Zara that said: “I really don't care. Do u? "(I don't care. What about you?) Although her official spokesperson, Stephanie Grisham, said it meant absolutely nothing, just another case of people reading too much in what the first lady, Melania, was wearing. she finally said in a rare interview that it was for the press, and how she did not care what they said about her, while claiming that she was the "most harassed person in the world", echoing her husband's tendency to hyperbole and self-pity.
Otherwise, she wore what she considered appropriate for any occasion, usually some American, or more likely European, luxury brand that she would feel comfortable with in her old Upper East Side setting. With no personal style of her own beyond luxury, she usually looked like she was wearing very expensive outfits on a movie set. In hindsight, the inaugural Ralph Lauren looks just like that.
What is she thinking? pic.twitter.com/rFufrgMb
— MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) August 10, 2012
When I think about her legacy, I always go back to the first lady's own words, written in a tweet that is still active since 2012: "What is she thinking about?" Melania wondered. The mystery, the implicit intrigue, the invitation to guess something that can never be known.
She along with the question she attached a photo of a beluga whale, which seems to laugh at us before sinking back under the surface, invisible again.
