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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIvanka Trump Was My Best Friend. Now She's MAGA Royalty
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/11/ivanka-trump-was-my-best-friend-now-shes-maga-royaltyFirst Family
Ivanka Trump Was My Best Friend. Now Shes MAGA Royalty
We met at an all-girls school on the Upper East Side and were inseparable for more than a decade. Gradually, though, our differences divided usWhy would you tell me to read a book about fucking poor people? she once askedand I watched her blow up her carefully-curated image of refined privilege to embrace her father wholesale.
By Lysandra Ohrstrom
November 17, 2020
snip//
For the past four years I have tried to tune out the conversation that dominated international media, but it is nearly impossible to ignore when the person who used to pluck ingrown hairs from your bikini line suddenly appoints herself to the role of unelected public official and begins to torch democracy. When Ivanka recently posted a photo of herself on stage with her children at a Trump rally, I wondered to another friend from the Manhattan private school world what her endgame might be. Ivanka had deigned to dress Middle American housewives when I knew her, but did not pretend to want to hobnob with them. Predictably, as she began moving with the real power brokers of the world, Ivanka became increasingly certain that she and the rest of the capitalist elite had better solutions to the plight of Americas struggling working class than elected officials and the creaky bureaucracies they presided over. But aligning herself with her dads banana republic-style administration made no sense to me, until my friend suggested that Ivanka took her kids to the rally to show them that they are American royalty. This explanation seemed most plausible. What is more royal than presiding over subjects that you disdain?
Ive been a good Wasp and kept quiet until now, even as Ive grown increasingly repulsed by Ivankas ability to aid and abet her father. Ive been comforted by the certainty that the backlash from those whose respect she craves most must sting. Still, I miss my old friend. I miss going to Green Kitchen on First Avenue at 1 a.m. for mozzarazza, hailing down a gondola in Amsterdam for a tour, belting out Anna Begins and songs from Les Mis on a road trip. But most of all, I miss the time when the Trump family quest for power was not dangerous to the country.
A day before Biden finally declared victory, I saw Ivanka issue a tepid statement about how Every legally cast vote should be counted, presumably at her fathers behest, still clearly hoping that she can be enriched and adored by the public she exploits even as shes embraced on the slopes of Aspen. Goodbye @IvankaTrump, reads one reply to her tweet. You will be loved by the people you disdain and disdained by the people you want to be loved by. There will never be a Met Ball for you again. You are fated to live out your years as an aging, corrupt, villainous Barbie; paying the price for what you did.
Though I do hope that fantasy comes truethe damage the Trump family has done is unforgivable, even if perpetrated by my childhood best friendI expect Ivanka will find a soft landing in Palm Beach instead, where casual white supremacy is de rigueur and most misdeeds are forgiven if you have enough money.Its the perfect spot for her to lie low, shielded from the economic and social consequences of the policies she pursued for the past four years, the backlash against them, and from having to interact with her MAGA following. Surely Ivanka will still market whatever branded products she can sell them, and many whisper that she will harness their loyalty in a future run for president.
Whether Ivanka is able to rehab her stained image or not, I hope she wasnt able to drown out the applause of the city she once aspired to rule, cheering and celebrating her political downfall. I was with them, crying with relief, matched only by the regret and shame I feel for not holding my former friend to account sooner.
Lysandra Ohrstrom (@LysandraO) is a Brooklyn-based freelance journalist who covers the U.S. and the Middle East.
underpants
(182,585 posts)This looks interesting
NameAlreadyTaken
(976 posts)dhol82
(9,351 posts)malaise
(268,655 posts)dhol82
(9,351 posts)If I were the author, I would watch my back.
SharonAnn
(13,771 posts)UTUSN
(70,640 posts)mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)UTUSN
(70,640 posts)Better never than too late. All that is coming her way now is the revenge of the UNpresident, fwiw *now* that's he's out.
Am referring to all the ex-chiefs of staff and generals who, first of all chose to take jobs with the UNpresident and second didn't show integrity to speak up when they were disagreeing with what he wanted. And now do their speaking up. Am lumping her into this group.
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)I mean another ex-friend has already written a book and it's far more scathing and implies criminality even.
And what happened? Nothing.
UTUSN
(70,640 posts)As for something happening, I'm sure the ex-friends will be frozen out and shunned and stuff socially. As for the books making money, WE won't buy them and the UNpresident's cult won't buy them, so they're shot in the foot, no?
In the subject person of the thread, I didn't get that we were supposed to stay within the bounds of criminality or even astounding disclousures.
babylonsister
(171,029 posts)made a difference? As she said in the article, the trumps would have thrown her to the wolves.
cstanleytech
(26,220 posts)an impact on Trump's co-conspirator Republican allies in the House and Senate especially during the 2018 elections.
LiberalLovinLug
(14,164 posts)His own family, Mary Trump, came out at the "perfect" time. About a month before the election. Devastating account of growing up as a Trump and watching Donnie.
Still the MAGATS came out in droves to support him, at least enough keep the Senate. Her testimony made no difference to them. At this point I can't see any crime any Trump would do, even murder now, that their infected fans would not forgive.
Progressive Jones
(6,011 posts)UTUSN
(70,640 posts)does what's she's saying *now* make to anything? All of us opposition have been cataloguing the UNpresident's and the Daddy's girl and all of them's atrociousness and diagnoses and hypocrisies since 2015.
As of Saturday, Nov. 7, we're *OVER* the UNpresident and his cult and family. I suspect his cultists are secretly happy to leave them behind, except for lip service, too. I don't get what "difference" is supposed to be made, especially now. As for making a buck, we're not buying financially her revelations and the cultists won't either. The UNpresident and his circle are already in the museum of grotesque curiosities of the past.
The only thing that would keep the UNpresident in current relevance would be whatever wrecking ball he might commit up until Jan 20. The revelations of personal foibles is for leisure time tsking on future vacations.
LAS14
(13,769 posts)1 - She and Chelsea Clinton were friends as adults. (I assume no longer...)
2 - When Hillary was asked, in a debate, to say something nice about Trump, she said "he has nice children," or words to that effect.
All I could think of is they just never talked politics??
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Ivanka probably hadnt discovered her grasping avarice and thirst for power before the election.
dalton99a
(81,385 posts)a picture of perfection personified, untouched by fucking poor people - until karma arrives
Newest Reality
(12,712 posts)she may tip over forwards and mess up the nose job.
Blue Owl
(50,235 posts)live love laugh
(13,070 posts)There. I feel better for saying it.
TxVietVet
(1,905 posts)Mike 03
(16,616 posts)years: Trump loathes you, he wouldn't be seen with you, he wouldn't allow you into Mar-a-Lago, he'd throw you out.
But this pattern with Trump and his kids is a repeat of what happened with Trump and his siblings with Fred Senior. You don't step out of line, and Daddy holds the purse strings. They remain children forever. Coping mechanisms they develop in childhood to "survive" don't serve them as adults, but they don't abandon them.
SleeplessinSoCal
(9,081 posts)I suspect mother was not motherly and didn't come to his aid when needed.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)His mother became very sick and almost lost her life when he was two years old. It took her a long time to recover so his father made his oldest sister, who was 13, take care of him. The result is his emotional development was stuck in the terrible twos.
Its in the opening chapter in Mary Trumps book. Mary Trump is Trumps niece and her side of the family were not allowed to inherit from her grandfather because Trump had his father change his will when he had Alzheimers.
I recommend the book. Its very well written and you learn a lot about Trump.
SleeplessinSoCal
(9,081 posts)It was pointed out that my anxiety and insecurities came more from my mother not protecting me from an overly critical stepfather. I too became the mini-mom to my 10 & 11 year old brothers. One loves women, the youngest has real issues with them.
I'd read the book, but honestly just want to have hypnosis to erase him from my psyche entirely.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)His narcissism has really helped me understand a couple of relationships I had. Sometimes it was like PTSD! But it did help me understand and work through the issues I still had because it was like a catharsis.
Guy Whitey Corngood
(26,494 posts)in our grade.". Why that doesn't sound like him at all.....
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)I can't believe he had the nerve to comment on her weight or the changes in her body. What a creep!
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,304 posts)Response to babylonsister (Original post)
CatLady78 This message was self-deleted by its author.
leftieNanner
(15,056 posts)But he's been Gold Star Fabulous for the publishing industry!
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Just like knowing about Hitler is useful to history.
Itll also teach us the lesson that it most certainly can happen here. And by extension that it can happen in any country.
It would only be useless if we learned nothing.
Response to lunatica (Reply #44)
CatLady78 This message was self-deleted by its author.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)But I guess I see these people as just another way of getting insight into their kind. Theyre grasping for lucre before it goes away. Scrambling for the shine by association and using the fall of their friends just as they used them to claim fame through association. They all deserve each other.
Still, I think they add some lessons to learn. They play their part.
Response to lunatica (Reply #47)
CatLady78 This message was self-deleted by its author.
Raven
(13,877 posts)no other purpose that I can discern other than to make the author feel better about herself.
babylonsister
(171,029 posts)maxrandb
(15,288 posts)This is evidence that America...and possibly the entire fucking world has not only crashed through the Looking Glass, but we are now using the broken shards to slit our fucking wrists.
Every fiber of my being, from the deepest depths of my soul, to the tips of my male nipples in the frozen-food section at Harris Teeter, knows with a crystalline, pure spar certainty, that I should NOT BE REQUIRED to give ONE-FUCK what this soulless, hell spawn "Netherworld Barbie" has to say about fucking anything!
My intellect, my psyche, my conscience, my decency and grace...all tell me that I shouldn't even be required to know who in the fuck these people are.
I know that these lifeless, grifting, vapid, empty vessels deserve NOT ONE SECOND of my serious thoughts.
These spray-on-tan, Loreal of Bakersfield, plastic, Axe-Body Spray wearing morons SHOULD BE THE MOST FUCKING INSIGNIFICANT PEOPLE WE EVER ENCOUNTER.
Their impact on our lives should have the same effect of a fucking gnat blocking the path of a charging rhino.
I will NEVER forgive fucking Donnie Shit for Brains voting morons for requiring me to take seriously A FUCKING BUNCH OF IGNORANT FUCKSTICKS that should NEVER be taken seriously
This fucking family and their supporters, are like dog-shit stuck in the grooves of your tennis shoes.
PatrickforO
(14,557 posts)And I share your sentiments.
A fucking bunch of ignorant fucksticks indeed!
maddiemom
(5,106 posts)"LIKE AMERICA"S PRINCESS DIANA!" when interviewed by one of the news shows. As someone who always thought Diana was waaay over-worshipped, I finally realized what a treasure she actually WAS. No comparison there.
sammythecat
(3,568 posts)You articulated my own feelings exactly. "I shouldn't even be required to know who in the fuck these people are." I spent my entire life never giving a thought to this mf'er and his spawn. These past 4 years he's spent time in my head every single goddamned day and I resent that theft of my time bitterly.
maxrandb
(15,288 posts)and I have to go to Google's Search Bar and type in the words; "is Donnie Trump still alive?"
Tommymac
(7,263 posts)stuck in the grooves of your tennis shoes."
GOTV GA
Response to babylonsister (Original post)
Name removed Message auto-removed
Hekate
(90,527 posts)...whatever changes a person undergoes for a very long time. You cherish the memory. You dont mention the flaws after you drift apart. And if it turns out your former friends father turns out to be a Mob boss with immense political power, you think long and hard about breaking your silence, because one thing Mob bosses are known for is a desire for bloody revenge. And your former friend has shown she wants to be just like him, only prettier.
Vanity Fair prints some excellent in-depth essays.
Ford_Prefect
(7,867 posts)Larissa
(788 posts)Trump recently threatened not to send any Covid-19 vaccines to New York. Gov. Cuomo has threatened to sue. So, yes, I would agree that Javanka would be in less than good standing in the Big Apple. However, that ship sailed some time ago. Bruni's article was the most read in the NYT's Monday paper. The other must read is Ivanka's Twitter feed. The take downs of her are breathtaking, yet she continues to walk into the chopper blades with her inane tweets. I don't think she cares a whit. The soulless usually don't.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/16/opinion/jared-ivanka-trump.html
Opinion: Was it worth it, Jared and Ivanka?
By: Frank Bruni, Opinion Writer - The New York Times
Just five short years ago Jared and Ivanka were dinner-party royalty here in Manhattan. Its that kind of place. They had money, they had youth, they had celebrity. They were thin. Im told that their manners were impeccable, so youd never know that his father was an actual felon and her father a de facto one. Besides, you cant hold family against someone, can you? We dont choose how were born.
But from then on, we do make choices, and were accountable for those.
Jared and Ivanka are about to be held accountable.
They chose to tether their fortunes to her fathers, chose to go along for the ride, chose to see how far it could take them, because what if it took them all the way? What if Ivanka became the first female president, something that Manhattan acquaintances of hers assured me that she fantasized about, a giddy possibility that her father floated out loud.
With that crowning adventure that climactic branding opportunity dangling before her, she and Jared rationalized her fathers tantrums, fed his delusions, laundered his cruelty and kept her Instagram aglow with images from their fabulous new Washington life.
Down there, near the border: migrant children in cages. Over here, near the Potomac: Javanka in their gilded tableaux.
They are the Faustian poster couple of the Trump presidency, the king and queen of the principle-torching prom at which so many danced alongside them, although in less exquisitely tailored attire.
They are Mitch McConnell after a makeover, Ted Cruz gone to charm school, Mike Pompeo with a more rigorous fitness regimen, Lindsey Graham with less time on the links. They are Mike Pence and Nikki Haley and scores of others in and out of office, so entranced by power, so enchanted by perks, so primed for future prizes that they junked values that they once supposedly held and downgraded decency to something ornamental, a sprig of parsley on a fish fillet.
Tell me, Jared. Be honest, Ivanka. Was it worth it?
Its a question for the whole shockingly populous court of collaborators around President Trump. Time will tell. Trumpism isnt ending. Trump himself isnt going away. Hell have his PAC, maybe hell have his new media venture, theres that rumor Id call it a threat that hes eyeing 2024. A wagon hitched to his may not be veering into the ditch just yet.
But the wagon that belonged to Jared and Ivanka was different from the others. It didnt fit neatly into the Trump administrations motley caravan of expedience and ambition: They were glossier grifters. That dissonance brought them special derision, because it was a particularly unsettling illustration of the tradeoffs that people are willing to make, the compromises that they can talk themselves into.
How big a leap was it, really, for Don Jr. to go from hunting big game in Africa to haranguing the political bigwigs whom Daddy dubbed RINOs? No one in Juniors old crowd was going to be surprised or appalled.
Same old menace, new prey.
Pences and Pompeos fellow evangelicals didnt and wont begrudge them their worship of Trump, because all of them found that twisted religion together. And no serious observer is disillusioned by McConnell, because no serious observer had any illusions about him in the first place. He does what he must to maximize his impact.
But what of Jared and Ivanka? They epitomized the very entitled, elite class of Ivy-groomed, Davos-bound Americans that her father mocked. They were sanctioning the savaging of their soon-to-be-former friends. You could say that they defected. But are they really going to be content in their new social homeland, now that 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is no longer its clubhouse?
Where, geographically, will they alight? That was a question prominently explored over recent days in Vanity Fair and CNN, which portrayed them more or less as Vuitton vagabonds.
Washington wont work, not even a suite at the Trump International Hotel, because theres nothing more pathetic than lingering at a party once the music has stopped.
Mar-a-Loco makes questionable sense. Its Melanias sandbox, and she and Ivanka play together about as sweetly as Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio do. New Jersey is where the Kushners have their roots, but Javanka is accustomed to more glitz than that. At this point theyre Aspen, not Asbury Park.
I have suggestions. North Korea, for one. Ivanka has met its ruler and been to the Demilitarized Zone. She wouldnt have to ask for directions. Saudi Arabia. Jared and Prince Mohammed bin Salman are spiritual twins, conjoined by their sense of superiority.
Russia. Yes, Russia! It would be the poetic choice, bringing the Trump familys presidential adventure full circle.
But its New York City, where Javanka still own an apartment, thats surely drawing their gaze. And thats, well, awkward. The Trump administration did label it an anarchic jurisdiction as part of an attempt to deny it as much as $12 billion in federal funds. Javanka would have some explaining to do.
They might not find many people willing to listen. Everyone with self-respect, a career, morals, respect for democracy, or who doesnt want their friends to shame them both in private and public, will steer clear, one unidentified former acquaintance of theirs told Emily Jane Fox for her Vanity Fair article.
Another said: Ivanka is no Princess Margaret and Jared is not the Duke of Windsor regaling guests with amusing bon mots to a captive audience. No one wants to hear about Sarah Huckabees pies or Steven Bannons shirts. A snob like that actually deserves a dynamic duo like them (and may shed light on how President Trump found the traction in the heartland that he did).
Javanka cant protest that they moderated the president, not after his past immoderate weeks of raging against democracy and conniving to subvert it. They cant retroactively claim some profound but strangled ambivalence about his reign, not after her fangirl phantasmagoria at the Republican convention.
No, they have made their bed. Lucky for them, the sheets have a serious thread count.
I invite you to sign up for my free weekly email newsletter. You can follow me on Twitter (@FrankBruni).
jayschool2013
(2,311 posts)Though he never remembered my name, he seemed to have a photographic memory for changes in my body. Ill never forget the time Ivanka and I were having lunch with her brothers at Mar-a-Lago one day, and while Mr. Trump was saying hi, Don Jr. swiped half a grilled cheese sandwich off my plate. Ivanka scolded him, but Mr. Trump chimed in, Dont worry. She doesnt need it. Hes doing her a favor. Conversely, hed usually congratulate me if Id lost weight.