Now, stacked on the Trump tower of petrifying things we have to worry about — war with Iran, war with China, war with Mexico, war with Islam, war with koala bears — there is yet another looming disaster.
The East Wing is perilously behind in planning for the Easter Egg Roll. Is the White House dropping the ball — or rather, the ovoid?
As our omnipresent new president hijacked our reality, the first lady vanished, sparking headlines for nary a glimpse in D.C. since the inaugural.
Just as there is a gush of leaks from the resistance in the federal government about President Trump’s erratic and impulsive behavior, there are whispers about Melania’s elusive and sphinx-like behavior.
The Times’s Julie Hirschfeld Davis wrote about the anguish of anonymous D.C. sources who fear the annual egg roll and other “elaborate White House events that are among the heaviest tasks for first ladies” are languishing in the deserted East Wing, as are unanswered requests for White House tours.
At least Dick Cheney, another mad scientist who hated multilateral relations and preached hegemony, waited until he had started a bogus war and smashed the globe before he embraced the nickname Darth Vader. Bannon calls himself that while he stirs the pot, noting that “darkness is good” and that Darth and Satan had real power.
As the elegant Melania scorns the East Wing, the grungy Bannon reigns in the West Wing, where late into the night he plots his Manichaean schemes to blow up everything with trade wars, real wars and battles against the Islamic “caliphate.” He blithely sits at the center like Jabba the Hutt as the slapdash White House sews strife, chaos and cruelty, putting out executive orders restricting immigration and rolling back financial regulations on Wall Street — a move that will hurt the very blue-collar Americans Trump pledged to protect.
I’m more worried about Trump’s presence in the White House than Melania’s absence. Whether or not she intends it, the woman who calls herself “a full-time mom” is making a modern statement about the role of the first lady. She’s saying: I’ll do it on my terms.
“Never since Abigail Adams has a first lady not lived in the White House from Day 1 — if they were alive and well,” said Kate Andersen Brower, author of “First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies.”
Melania may just be enjoying some proper rest in her golden aerie without the distracting light of Donald’s devices as he taps his wee-hour tweets that set the world afire.
The reason it would have been so delicious to see Bill Clinton in the first lady role is that it would have illustrated starkly just how antiquated the white satin music box is. The man who knew every detail of the Irish and Middle East peace processes would not have been expected to simply read books to schoolchildren on trips abroad or deal with flowers for state dinners.
“Bill Clinton would have upended the role and changed all the gender stereotypes,” Brower said. “Melania Trump is going to do something equally interesting by refusing to accept our expectations of what a first lady should be. Her refusal to fulfill this thirst that people have for the first lady role to be held by an ideal wife and mother who is everything to everyone is a really unfair expectation for anyone.
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário