2 weeks Ago By Pravina-rudra
So much for the anticipation of a “first gentleman”. One consequence of electing another male White House incumbent is that the tradition of glossy first ladies lives on – and none is as glitzy, image-savvy and yet durably enigmatic as Melania Trump . The future of the family dynasty, a court whose game of thrones is as intense across generations and internal factions as any ruthless party power struggle, was also on the US election ballot this week.
But while children and now grown-up grand-children vye for prominence via social media posts demonstrating their closeness to “grandpa”, it is Melania who will be occupying the East Wing residency of the official spouse – and inherit the opulence bestowed by the late Jackie Kennedy (including separate bedrooms, which many incumbents have found a useful perk when the marital going gets rough). Like Kennedy, she is stylish and luxury-loving. But as she returns for a second term in the role, there are signs that the First Lady (and third spouse) of the President is starting to have things her own way.
She appeared looking markedly cheerful for the election result call, and having followed the Trumps on the campaign trail, it is always pretty obvious when she is not engaged , because she dons huge sunglasses (the Jackie self-defence weapon) and simply pouts silently throughout. Like medieval court optics, much can be said by simply appearing – or not – in imagery. Not being on call for the Trump-and-friends victory photo featuring the Vances, Elon Musk, the UFC’s Dana White and the rest of the extended family, may well have reflected her dislike of being choreographed by other members of the clan – the picture was posted by Kai Trump, daughter of Donald Trump Jr and thus a line of “succession” from the President’s previous wife, Ivana.
Melania’s first stint in the White House was marked by running conflict with Ivanka (Ivana’s daughter) who became a close political ally of her father. Trump-watchers will look out for any repeat of that dynamic: the feuding between First Lady and First Daughter over everything from office space to speech topics. Perhaps as an early defensive move, Melania has established much of the groundwork this time for clearer contours of her role by penning an autobiography, including communications which often look more “Trump adjacent” than on-message.
She has just posted a missive on social media pledging that her husband’s administration will “safeguard the heart of our republic – freedom”, stating “I anticipate the citizens of our nation rejoining in commitment to each other and rising above ideology for the sake of individual liberty, economic prosperity, and security.” While much of this is freedom-loving boilerplate rhetoric, subliminal meanings can often by winkled out of Melania’s distinctive communication. And in this case, “rising above ideology” reflects her desire to remain separate from the more rebarbative or divisive aspects of her husband’s campaign.
Her husband had first havered on the matter, then punted it in the campaign as the prerogative of individual states – which would make terminations harder to secure across a swathe of “deep red” states which have instigated abortion bans. Melania struck back, surprising even Republican operatives with a forthright statement and video in defence of abortion rights. In her memoir, she wrote: “It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government”.
There is often ambiguity, however, on whether she is critiquing her husband’s politics – or simply making them more palatable to Americans outside the MAGA core. On abortion, she deployed the “bodily autonomy” argument more familiar to Democrats: “Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body?” But allowing a range of views on abortion and moving away from more sweeping statements on opposing abortion benefitted the president-elect and blunted a Democrat strategy which had hoped the issue would bring wavering female voters to their side. In similar vein, when her husband was vilified in the Access Hollywood tapes just before the 2016 election, for having spoken of “grabbing” women by their genitals as his dating method, Melania dismissed the brouhaha as mere “boys talk”.
Which causes she takes up in a second term as the country’s most prominent woman will be telling. Last time, she ran a “Be Best” campaign to combat online bullying, adding plaintively that she was “one of the most bullied people on the planet” (The Trumps are rarely about anything more than themselves when push comes to shove). That initiative felt ad hoc and under-staffed: it raised no new money and was intended to address both cyberbulling and opioid abuse, among other issues – which felt like a muddle .
That raises the question of whether Melania’s second term will feel different from the erratic and (by US standards) amateurish communications of the first term, which resulted in her visiting a detention centre for migrant children in 2018 wearing a jacket emblazoned with the message, “I Really Don’t Care”. Read Next A new dawn at The Spectator brings Gove and Badenoch together again The backlash was predictable – although many staffers of the era decoded the insulted as a diss towards her step-daughter Ivanka (which sounds odd, until you consider that a lot of what happens in the fractious Camelot of Trump world is really about dynastic feuding and place in pecking order rather than anything more substantial). It could be different a second time around.
The Trump’s marriage has often been declared to be in the “do not resuscitate” zone, with rumours that she was hanging on in there to protect their son Barron or secure a big beautiful divorce settlement. That looks unlikely. Melania has the grit of her background as a girl from small-town Slovenia who rose to the heights of first lady – twice.
She can clearly tolerate her husband pretty well, by guarding her distance when it suits her. A second residency will probably be a mix of impressive, superficial and occasionally, a flash of the real person kept carefully hidden in nearly 20 years of marriage to a difficult man. Melania’s memoir bore only her name on the cover – and that tells us that the First Lady sees the brand as herself: no longer just the adjunct.
And when she meets Jill Biden for the handover session over tea, it is Melania who will have the biggest kudos in US politics: having been in the White House before – and back. Anne McElvoy hosts the Power Play transatlantic podcast for POLITICO out today.
