Melania goes full tomb raider in Egypt. Credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
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Describing Melania Trump is like trying to describe a box made of dark, reflective glass. We squint, we stare, we discern the outline of something-or-other inside — but mostly, the only thing we can see is ourselves. The First Lady is tricky that way: she’s a question mark, a blank space in the shape of a woman, a pure white canvas on which to project all our own fears, anxieties, and frustrations about her husband’s presidency. In the rare event that she does deliver a statement, no matter how casual or cryptic, we pounce on it with all the enthusiasm of a lovelorn teenager analysing a text message from a crush. What is she thinking? What does it mean?!
The jacket, for instance. In June 2018, Melania was photographed departing a Texas Air Force base after visiting a shelter for detained immigrant children. She was wearing a jacket, olive green, with stark white letters on its back, a message that looked like it had been dabbed on with a child’s paintbrush: I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?
What did it mean? Everyone had a theory, including Donald Trump, who tweeted that the garment was meant as a message to the “Fake News Media” — even though many believed that it was a message to Trump himself. Still others, the harshest critics, insisted that she meant to convey her disregard for the children; one imagined her strolling through a crowd of traumatised migrant kids with I REALLY DON’T CARE emblazoned on her back. (Don’t worry, she didn’t.) Whoever the intended recipient of Melania’s disregard, everyone agreed that the jacket mattered.
By the end of the week, the jacket — a flimsy, $39 piece of fast fashion from Zara that had probably been purchased by some trollish GOP stylist rather than the First Lady herself — had been imbued with as many layers of symbolic meaning as a Hieronymus Bosch painting. Much less was made about the visit itself, despite its significance: Donald Trump signed an executive order to end his controversial family separations policy later that month, suggesting that Melania’s choice to involve herself in the issue was not just out of character but perhaps even influential.
But the jacket controversy was only a continuation of a well-established pattern. By the time the 45th president took office, we were already used to filling in the blanks where Melania might have been, but wasn’t. There was no place on Donald Trump’s campaign trail for a perpetually-present spouse, even if she’d wanted to be there; the thrice-married and notoriously philandering candidate made no pretence of being a paterfamilias in the tradition of family values Republicans.
When he did bring family onstage, it made for a striking portrait: Melania on one side, a passel of large adult children from his previous marriages on the other. And unlike other political wives, Melania’s appearances were sparing and strategic: popping up to dismiss Trump’s “grab ’em by the pussy” tape as “boy’s talk,” or delivering a rare 11th hour rally speech in PA (where her husband did in fact secure a surprise win.)
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SubscribeWhat a bizarre article.
I never felt sorry for Melania Trump and I certainly don’t hate her. She’s the glamorous wife of an unusual president that’s all; hints of a mind of her own, dignified, keeps her own counsel, seems to enjoy the company of her child and prioritised his well-being over everything else as far as she was able, I find all those qualities admirable.
Good for her.
Totally bizarre. Kat Rosenfield, no one “forced” you (“we were forced . . .”) to obsess about the Meaning of Melania and her dignified reticence. The jacket was a mistake, but so what. Get over it. Multilingual Melania has a step up on virtually every one of the mental mites who put her under a magnifying glass to generate a mean little bit of copy for a few dollars.
And no word here about Melania as Mother. Even though I believe she made it quite clear early on that her son, not her husband’s career, is her priority.
Get a life, Kat.
I know (hope) this was written with a healthy dose of irony but the media behaviour towards her was largely appalling. She was mocked and ridiculed for whatever she did or did not do. The same media that extols the leadership of Jacinda Ardern because she’s ‘kind’ gets stuck in to someone because she’s married to one whose politics they disagree with. Pretty much sums up most so-called journalists these days. Hypocritical, shamelessly partisan and mean-spirited
Yes, mean-spirited fairly describes it. I have seen journos question whether Melania is really the first First Lady since Jackie Kennedy to speak French, questioning her fluency in that and other languages, but besides Slovenian she definitely speaks Serbo-Croatian, as it was compulsory in the People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. If Trump does not get a second term I think Serbs will be disappointed, as the US government had good relations with Serbia under Trump, and Melania’s influence must have helped. The Slovenes are mostly Catholic, the Serbs mostly Orthodox, but they have always had good relations with each other. What Trump has achieved in the former Yugoslavia is remarkable. The Kosovo and Serbia economic normalization agreements is a big step forward. Serbia and Kosovo are both moving their embassies in Israel to Jerusalem, with Kosovo being the first Moslem majority nation to do so. I really wonder if such great progress would have been achieved if Trump didn’t have a wife who was brought up in Yugoslavia.
You are possessed of far greater knowledge than the writer of this nasty article. But since these comments sections started to appear about 15 years ago it soon became apparent that many of those commenting new far more than most the writers. This is one of the reasons so many of us have lost all faith in the MSM.
The media went out of their way to never get to know her, to ignore her, to denigrate her. An infantile attempt to unperson this intelligent and elegant woman thanks to their vile hatred of her husband? Yes, I think that’s it.
Melania Trump came from a pretty poor background. Like her, most poor people don’t want liberal pity.
You got that right, mate.
What a pathetic waste of space and time reading this article. You Kat, like all the other MSM opinionators who ignored her these last 4 years, want to get your last dig in. Well young lady, we see through the jealousy & hate, because she is what none of you (foul-mouthed, p***y-hat-wearing, plain-if-not-ugly-looking and embarrassing feminists), will ever be. She’s a multi-lingual, hard-working, independent, caring mother & wife, and she’s absolutely GORGEOUS!
Are you Donald Trump?
Nail right on the head Deborah. Well said.
‘When did we stop feeling sorry for Melania, and start to hate her instead? Why did she stop being a vehicle for the hopes of a fiery resistance, and start becoming guilty by association?’
Given the rather presumptuous and telling use of ‘we’ here, may I be so bold as to suggest that it was when ‘we’ lost hope when ‘we’ realised that ‘we’ couldn’t somehow use the First Lady as yet another stick to beat the husband ‘we’ all so obviously despise so much over the head with.
I think the title of your article says more about you than the content on your article about the First Lady. It shows you never cared to get to know her which is what I think most of the media and haters of Trump were. There’s a saying: If you wish to get to know someone, be interested not interesting. Your view is from the outside which means you were never interested enough to get to know her.
She was the wife of a president, does it matter what she thinks?
I don’t care what my bosses wife’s or their husbands think.
She was not elected.
It is always just guilt by association towards any one who is not correct in their thinking.
When did we stop feeling sorry for Melania, and start to hate her instead?
When did you ever feel sorry for her? The hate was evident early on with a long list of unflattering names hurled at her. And somehow, she managed to be the only first lady I can recall who never graced a single magazine cover or had a single positive story published.
She speaks multiple languages, but the left chose to mock her accent. She boarded a plane wearing boots (only to change en route to more appropriate footwear) but the former was emphasized and the latter ignored. She was “invisible” because the media chose to treat her that way.
Except of course when the published the glamour shots.
You hardly knew her because you didn’t want to get to know her. She had so much more going for her than Mrs Obama in spades. We’ve never had a first lady speak as many languages as her poise and Grace was her. In the way the media treated her was downright disgusting. There’s not a one of you on the left that’s good enough to even shine her shoes..
Good to see other views about this. I can’t bear Donald Trump for many reasons, but I didn’t have strong feelings about the First Lady either way. I was a little intrigued, as it was clear she was uncomfortable with the whole thing. But I hope now I may not be the only one who had little time for Michelle Obama? I found her pushy, annoying & just trying to use the presidency for her own ends. It’s hardly as if she needed more money & success, as she had her own successful career. Yet, she was lauded & fawned over & I found it sickening, because she looked a certain way I believe & was good at fooling people.
To the person that wrote this article, Mrs Trump outshines you by a 1000 miles. Your article about her is nothing more then leftist snide arrogance tripe.
I love her. Fabulously mysterious woman.
Lots of words here, but a speculative answer points in a pretty simple direction. She never aspired to be First Lady, and she hadn’t spent years as a politician’s spouse. The latter is of course a contrast with every other recent First Lady.
I think you could say the same about DT as well… he certainly hasn’t been a career politician which of course is why the career politicians and other elite hate him so much.
and why he gets away with saying things career politicians could never say.
It makes perfect sense to me that most people just don’t want to be famous.
Why do political websites like this have millennial women as “culture editors”? Her output seems less than cultured as does her Twittering.
I certainly don’t care about this vacuous nonsense
and yet here you are.
As are you, 100 facile comments in 48 hours. Substance abuse perhaps?
don’t worry that butt hurt you are experience will subside if you stop scratching it
I was always taught not to mock the afflicted, however in your case I shall make an exception.
Tut tut, you really are an ill-mannered young woman.For a moment I thought you were a rather poorly educated hockey mom, living in a log cabin, half way up Mt Hood, I was obviously mistaken.
You must therefore be one of that chippy rabble that has been disrupting Portland of late? All that shrieking and synthetic anger about about BLM tosh and other spurious grievances?
By the way I looked into that Quaron thing, surely a crypto marxist fantasy, is it not?
I see Oregon is about to legalise substance abuse, you lucky girl! Maybe it will put you out of your very obvious misery, for which you have my sincere condolences.
clearly you are addled at the thought of being bested by “… an ill-mannered young woman.For a moment I thought you were a rather poorly educated hockey mom, living in a log cabin, half way up Mt Hood.”
Quaron?
No chippy rabble like you and your hooligan Brexitees crying in your cider as Cummings is shown the door.
You are a prime exemplar of English reactionaries longing for lost empire”so sad.
How very disappointing,
what a feeble response, you must be able to do better than that?
Perhaps I angered you by describing you as a young women, when in fact you are one of those LGBT weirdos who likes to addressed as ‘it’, rather than the traditional she or he?
Anyway it’s time to get off your knees, stop grovelling and pull yourself together, with regard to that BLM nonsense.There is still time.
By the way, what happened to your lovely dog? I see you have replaced him that national icon, Nigel Farage. Are you perhaps a closet fan of NF! Good girl!
The concept of First Lady is so utterly outdated – or should be. I’m glad Melania Trump has played it so low key, whatever her reasons. If Hilary Clinton had been elected would Bill have been First Man, endlessly scrutinised over his choice of tie?
Seriously? You really think she would have been treated any differently than her husband? She did exactly what I would have done – kept a low profile. She’s not stupid!
‘…she just really didn’t care. Did you?’.
No. We’re really not that interested
That’s a lot of words about a women that….well, eeehhh, she.., well let’s start with the fact that she actually exists and she is married to the president and she was a model and had some strategic surgery and…….pppfffhhhh..well, that’s about it. Any other recommendations?
Yes, this piece is a tour de force of the ex nihilo genre.
It’s perfectly simple; she’s a clothes horse, period.
What a thoroughly spiteful and unpleasant article Miss Rosenfield. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Unreal – are you blaming her for the media ignoring everything about her, except to mock her fashion choices, her accent, her choices? She is to blame for your hatred and your pathetic “mean girls” style coverage? Did I just miss the ridiculous, sycophantic, glowing, fan-girling about her arms? The Vogue covers? oops, nope that must have been a different First Lady, sorry, just confused. Seriously, get over yourself.
My family assisted a Slovenian family in emigrating to the USA in the 1970’s. In return I spent a summer in Ljublijana, the Slovenian capital, around the same time with their extended family members. Slovenes are very intelligent and hard-working people, scarred by terrible losses in the WW2 and then brutalized by being within the Soviet sphere, until Tito’s death when Yugoslavia finally fell apart as did the Soviet Empire.
When the left-leaning, main stream USA media attacked Melania during these past years, to me they were just expressing their ignorance of a woman and the culture from which she came. She was called terrible names – hooker, stupid, opportunist, etc. The attacks were pure venom & stupidity. For what I see in her, are old-fashioned values of keeping-your-own-counsel, not spewing just anything that comes to mind, a carefulness that has by necessity been historically inculcated in Slovenian culture. Her Slavic beauty – her high cheekbones are breathtaking, but not unusual in Slovenia with lots of beautiful women, yet ignorant commenters would say it was ‘plastic surgery’. Her fabulous figure just reflects a model’s discipline. And she is very intelligent – her look, the way she answers questions.
And you, Kat Rosenfeld question her love for her husband because she stayed in New York until her son’s school term was out? This is just a stupid and incorrect observation. In the mid-1990’s, my husband was transferred to London, but I too followed him SIX months later, once my kids had finished their school term in NYC. Consistency makes sense in raising children.
My heart went out to Melania as the ‘virtual tomatoes’ were tossed her way during these past four years. No major fashion or life-style magazine used her for a cover story – their loss. I am embarrassed by the ignorance of those in the media who did not give themselves a chance to understand this woman and her interesting country of origin. Americans can be very, very provincial, Brits too. This essay reeks of a snowflake’s last vindictive gasp as it welcomes the arrival of the 47-year, entrenched Swamp creature Biden.
a very modern progressive guy I used to know was so deranged by Trump’s election 4 years ago — p***y grabber and all that — that he, a self-identifying feminist guy, would refer to Melania as the “s**t from Slutvania.” There is an element of humour in that, but it’s way overshadowed by the bigotry and latent totalitarianism revealed in the remark.
Very well said Cathy, I felt quite emotional reading your obviously heartfelt comment……Worth an article on its own.
“We hardly knew her, and now it’s unlikely we ever will.”
…but do we care?
Well, if she’s free one night next week…
Another grifter, another grifter gone. We’re talking about a call-girl, a liar, a person who sold the use of her body to a man who is nothing less than a serial sexual predator, and in full knowledge of that fact. Imagine Jacki Kennedy posing for Maxim, or what many here would be saying about Obama if he was paying hookers and porn-stars first for sex, then to shut them up all while married.
Have a great time twisting your opinions of Melania and Donald into the stories many of you want them to be… but the above is the elevator version of a very sorted, sordid, sad and ugly truth about what will undoubtedly go down as the most reprehensible president and first lady in the history of a great nation. So as she asked do I care? No, I only care that she’s gone. Good riddance.
oh f**k off. I don’t know anything about her and neither do you. What gives you the right to slag off someone like that. You’re just an asshole.
She prayed the Our Father with a rally of Trump supporters which he expressed surprise about. She refused to move into the White House until it had been exorcised and cleansed of the Voodoo artifacts placed there by Hilary Clinton during the Clinton era. She’s probably a huge influence in Trump’s commitment to pro-life issues. I’d say she’s the best thing about the Trump presidency. And he might too.
This is a strange kind of hit piece, isn’t it? Ostensibly about what a cipher Melania is but still finding ways to slide a knife in. No wonder she kept a low profile. Even articles the seem to portray her fairly go off on weird tangents.
I suppose worth asking why she married such a fake. Then Hilary was not exactly humble, nor Michelle. Melania was quiet and still is. Unlike Mary Trump. She is I suggest un-American and incorporates values of Europe, not brash and undignified.
She is s a vacuous uncaring ex porn star. When you marry for money, you earn every cent. Be Best Melania … and good riddance to your whole family.
“…low profile…”; “…low key…” more like low IQ.
Tracy Ullman’s “Melania Trump Robot” nailed it.
She wore a jacket which perfectly sums up her relevance and importance to the history of the United States: “I really don’t care. Do U?” It did not surprise me at all to read that on her back, as it was chosen by a grasping, grifting call-girl model from another country whose only interest in the United States was to get there, and then to find a rich man who needed a trophy wife… and marry him. That he got elected to the presidency thereafter she never considered either before or after his election, as evidenced not just by her famous jacket, but by her total lack of engagement with her job or the American people while in the White House.
So good riddance to her and the entire family of lying, cheating, tax and draft dodging grifters that she joined, and I can only desperately hope that the White House is never occupied in the future by people like them ever again.
Your obviously either an American who has no idea about irony or your an American who has no idea that Trumpism isnt going anywhere. Its here to stay wether you like it or not. My guess you dont like it. Welcome to the new normal.
Yes, Dominic, American, 40 year expat. Re the balance of your comment, it depends upon how you define ‘Trumpism’. If you’re referring to the personality cult backing a man, whatever he says or does, no, I’m not a fan. If you’re referring to the vague ‘policies’ that could be at a stretch called some kind of ideological or socio-economic framework of governance… I’m happy to engage that discussion and you might be surprised to find me in agreeance with many parts of it. Lastly, you’re right, it’s not going away, but it badly needs to figure our which of the above two it is before it can be taken seriously as anything more than a personality cult. QAnon? Proud Boys? Biden’s a communist? As I said, when they take themselves seriously, then the rest of us can too.
Looks like the WH is on the verge of being occupied by a different set of people from the other side of the political tracks which pretty much matches your description of the Trump family. Draft dodging!? Bill Clinton? Dubya? It’s not an exclusive trait exactly.
We don’t know much about Biden and the murky details of his family’s activities – largely thanks to an American media that has abandoned any semblance of objectivity or impartiality – but as always the truth will out. As will increasingly and worryingly obvious signs that his cognitive abilities are in decline.
Your personal attack on the character and motives of Melania T verges on the splenetic. Doubtless that paragon of marital fidelity and unimpeachable (well, it was a close run thing) morality, Bill Clinton, would endorse your views.
“We don’t know much about Biden”??? Really? Let’s see. Elected and re-elected to senate SEVEN times. Always filed income taxes, and always publicly. VP of the US two terms. Always filed taxes, always publicly. Vetted by FBI and press over all those years… so… exactly what do you not know that you appear to believe is both lacking… AND pertinent to us?
Please research the fever swamp myths that he’s a secret multi-billionaire with homes around the world, in the pocket of the chinese, and return to the fact based world. As to Clinton, not sure what he has to do with Melania.
Your first paragraph is perfectly fair, but it’s the kind of president he’ll be and what he stands for that we don’t know. That was pretty much ducked in an overall electoral stratagem of keeping quiet, limiting appearances & attendance and just by not being Donald Trump.
It looks as though it has worked but such a low profile / passive / negative approach inevitably means less is known about him compared to what might have elicited from greater scrutiny. As for scrutiny, the media in the US voluntarily took a bath on analysing some of the darker question marks on him and his family’s dealings. He had a free ride courtesy of a pathetically partisan press. The truth will out, whatever it turns out to be.
As for Clinton, your comments on Melania – aside from being unnecessarily personal and poisonous – purport to besmirch her moral character. In case you need reminding, this recent Democrat president is hardly the gold standard for morality, truthfulness, murky background…I could go on.
Well we certainly don’t know much about his family dealings in Ukraine and China, because most of the media refused to even publish a story that, had it been, say, Trump Jr., they would have been all over like white on rice. And Biden’s moral rectitude and paying taxes is fine for a priest or deacon, but is he going to be tough on Iran and China like a leader of the U.S. ought to be, or will he revert to the same old same old, get suckered by China — again — and outnegotiated by the Iranian thugocracy. The U.S. presidency isn’t the Papacy. Trump’s POLICIES with regard to the middle east was game changing, and unlike the Dems, including Biden, he actively opposed critical race theory and the summer of BLM love.
a typically religious response from another member of the Church of the Trump Deranged. And nasty too. What did this lady ever do to you? or anyone else?