U.S. President Donald Trump is greeted by Ivanka Trump at a campaign rally in Manchester, N.H., on Feb. 10, 2020.
JONATHAN ERNST/Reuters
Nina L. Khrushcheva is a professor of international affairs at The New School in New York.
In her autobiography, The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life, Donald Trumps eldest daughter, Ivanka, described an incident involving her father and his second wife, Marla Maples. The family was supposed to take their private plane to Florida, but Marla was late. Just as they were about to take off, a mere five minutes behind schedule, Ivanka saw a car pull onto the tarmac. Marla rushed out. But when Ivanka pointed this out, her father refused to have the pilot stop. His frantic and frazzled wife would just have to watch from the tarmac as their plane disappeared into the clouds.
One might think Mr. Trumps behaviour heartless and cruel. One might see an empty, ego-driven bid to assert control over those who fail to obey. But, in Ivanka Trumps eyes, it was a necessary life lesson in punctuality. Decades later, she seems to have internalized many of her fathers teachings in callousness, added a dutiful Stepford Wife veneer, and established herself as his most formidable and dangerous heir.
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Five years ago, I would not have wasted a moment thinking about Ivanka Trump. I would have happily left her celebrity life first as a model, then as an executive of her ersatz fashion label to the tabloids. I would never have written about her father, either. Yet this gold-plated familys takeover of much of the U.S.s political, psychic, and even spiritual life leaves little choice but to pay attention.
This is not only because the patriarch served a term as U.S. president. Just as Mr. Trump made all his adult children senior vice-presidents at the Trump Organization, he turned his White House into another failing branch of the family business. For Ms. Trump, that meant becoming a senior adviser to the President. Four years later, and with no accomplishments to her name, she seems to be preparing for a political career of her own.
In a sense, Ms. Trump has little choice but to embrace politics. She built her career on the family name. Her modelling jobs depended on her fathers status and her mother Ivanas modelling legacy. And her fashion brand was simply other peoples designs, with her name on the label.
But, after Donald Trumps malignant presidency, the Trump name has become toxic in the fashion world. Major retailers such as Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus dropped Ivankas product lines years ago.
So, instead, Ms. Trump will carry her fathers political brand forward. But with New York giving the Trumps a Bronx cheer, Ms. Trumps likely launch site will be Florida a state her father won in 2016 and 2020, and the home of his glitzy Mar-a-Lago resort and country club.
Late in 2019, Mr. Trump changed his official domicile from Manhattan to Mar-a-Lago, which he seems intent on making his primary residence after he leaves the White House, though residents of Palm Beach are fighting hard to stop him. For her part, Ms. Trump recently purchased a US$30-million waterfront lot near Miami Beach.
This suggests that Ms. Trump may be considering a Senate run, especially if her father plans to run for re-election in 2024. But, given that her father openly considered making her his vice-president in 2016, there is also a chance that The Donald will operate from the sidelines, while Ivanka pursues the top spot on the 2024 Republican ticket.
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For the Trumps, Ivanka may well be the ideal frontwoman. She is as soulless and cutthroat as her father, but more polished and polite, and she seems to be at least partly aware of the flaws in the Trump brand.
Of course, the vast majority of successful women did not ascend a golden, Trump-branded escalator. They took the stairs. Not surprisingly, Ms. Trumps self-aggrandizement comes across as exceedingly tone-deaf to many women who work. At last years World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, then-International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde seemed shocked when the U.S. Presidents daughter interjected in a discussion among world leaders.
Of course, Donald Trump didnt invent nepotism, and political dynasties are a longstanding American tradition. Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush benefited more from name recognition than actual achievements. Liz Cheney would not be one of the most senior Republicans in the House of Representatives if her father wasnt former vice-president Dick Cheney. To this day, barely an election passes in which a Kennedy isnt running for a House seat.
But even among beneficiaries of nepotism, the Trumps are a step beyond corruption. For them, nepotism is just the start of the self-dealing. That is why Ivanka Trumps budding political career should worry everyone.
If she does end up breaking the presidential glass ceiling in 2024 possibly after defeating Liz Cheney in the Republican primary and vice-president-elect Kamala Harris (who owes her success to her own hard work) in the election it will not be because she deserves it. And she will use her power just as her father has: for the Trumps and no one else.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2020
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With no accomplishments to her name, the President’s daughter seems to be preparing for a political career of her own
