a shockingly Trump-like dad, and even some family secrets.
.. He in a tux; she in a $100,000 Dior dress that laborers’ hands had toiled upon for a legendary 550 hours, affixing 1,500 crystals—jewels fit for private citizens like them.
.. In this respect, she is just like her husband. She’s alluringly opaque. She makes meaningful eye contact and emphatically repeats affirmative, folksy banalities—she “has a thick skin,” she takes things “day by day,” she follows the news “from A to Z”—until the interviewer either is transported into a supra-verbal understanding or decides it’s pointless to press for specifics.
.. This image of a retiring homebody, of course, is not the one that Trump’s enemies present when they conjure her in the White House. Ahead of Utah’s primary, allies of Ted Cruz posted a photo from a shoot for a 2000 issue of British GQ in which a naked Melania is lying on her stomach on a white bearskin rug. “Meet Melania Trump. Your next First Lady,” read the ad, aimed at conservative Mormon voters. “Or, you could support Ted Cruz on Tuesday.”
Ten Reasons Why Melania Trump’s Speech Will Have a Lasting Impact
The blunder by the Republican nominee’s wife underscores a campaign rife with problems.
.. Now at last the script writes itself: Trump as doofus, the guy who went broke running a casino—and can’t even find someone to write an ordinarily competent speech for his wife’s big self-introduction to the American public.
.. Trump has just vividly demonstrated that his campaign—never mind the campaign, he himself—have zero skill at crisis management. Confronted with this comically absurd failure, their instinct is not only to lie, shift blame, and refuse responsibility, but to do so in laughably unbelievable ways.
.. The incident throws a harpoon into the heart of the Trump campaign’s racial politics. Trump’s message: Non-white people are ripping off hard-working white Americans who play by the rules. “They” cheat; “we” lose. Could there be a sharper reversal of that racialized complaint than Melania Trump in her designer dress stealing Michelle Obama’s heartfelt words?
.. A capable spouse effectively doubles the candidate’s own campaigning hours—more than doubles them, because she or he can relieve the candidate of speaking to party loyalists, whose votes are not in question, to free time for reaching swing voters and persuadables
.. Donald Trump epically does not tell the truth, does not keep his promises, and does not treat others with dignity and respect. A plagiarized speech (and the failure to detect the plagiarism) pretty strongly confirms that the Trumps do not much care about hard work, either. “Thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I: yea, thine own lips testify against thee.”
The Beauty of Melania Trump
But Melania’s speech was distinct from the First Lady’s in a significant way. When she talked about her upbringing, she elevated the importance of beauty as a part of her personal narrative. It was one more way that she, and her husband, have used their position of power on the campaign trail to send a message that a woman’s worth can be measured by the way she looks.
.. It’s possible his campaign hopes Melania can help broaden that appeal. But it’s hard to see how the candidate’s wife herself would be all that relatable to women. A central part of Melania’s life story as an aspirational narrative is the fact that her beauty has translated to success.
Why the Melania-Michelle Echo Matters
Trump is constantly telling us how incompetent everyone who’s been steering the government is and how masterfully he’ll take the wheel. He’s incessantly crowing about what a brilliant business he manages.
.. This wasn’t just any speaker. This was Trump’s wife. The derision being heaped on her remarks is something that will burrow deep under his tenderly sensitive skin. It will turn an already-defensive candidate even more so. And it will leave his aides fumbling for the smartest response.
.. There is no sign whatsoever that Clinton had a hand in the detection of strangely familiar lines in Melania’s speech, and the assertion that Clinton feels threatened by Melania is somewhat less than persuasive.
.. After Monday night, that discomfort is bound to increase, and it could become more difficult than ever for the Trump campaign to turn to her as a surrogate who can cover some of the ground that her husband can’t.