Daughter or First Lady?
Ivanka Trump has played a unique and vital role throughout the course of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Since the start of his campaign, Ivanka has been a figure who has been front and center and heavily depended on by Trump. She has often been portrayed as level-headed and in many cases, the voice of reason when Trump tends to have one of his political outbursts. In several ways, Ivanka has been the female figure in Trump’s life that has stood out. With two divorces under his belt and being on his third marriage to Melania, who is not well versed in politics, Ivanka has been a dominating character who Trump continues to depend on to draw public support. Her role has continuously mirrored that of the typical first lady candidate and Trump has done nothing but encourage the media to focus on her. He has used her to speak on political matters, promote his campaign through social media, and headline different campaign ads like televised commercials. Meanwhile, little to no attention has been focused on Melania, except for when she was caught plagiarizing her a speech at the Republican National Convention. Since that mistake, Trump’s campaign has fought even more to hide Melania and focus their attention on Ivanka as a competent and reliable female figure in Trump’s inner circle. This has been extremely vital for Trump who has often come across as sexist and as someone who does not respect women.
Has Ivanka’s role hurt his campaign?
In some ways, Trumps heavy dependency on Ivanka has called into question the type of relationship they have. This was further called into question when he made an inappropriate remark to Rolling Stones in 2015 stating, “Yeah, she’s really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father …” This creepy remark, and others have made it easy for Hillary’s campaign to paint their relationship in a negative light and use one of Trump’s greatest strengths as his weakness. It was an easy way for them to question Trump’s character. Overall however, Trump needs Ivanka in order to appeal to a female audience he otherwise would be unable to reach. His audience needs to know he has a solid female voice in his group who will be present during his presidency and Ivanka fits that role.
Sources:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/trump-seriously-20150909
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/after-convention-stumble-melania-trump-has-largely-vanished-from-campaign/2016/09/08/c887d576-6bab-11e6-8225-fbb8a6fc65bc_story.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-campaign-releases-general-election-ad-featuring-ivanka/story?id=42483585
I think that this is a really interesting take on how someone other than a candidate’s wife can fill the first lady role. When I began reading your blog, the plagiarism at the Republican National Convention was the first thing that came to mind, even before you mentioned it. I think that this is really important, because it showcased a big weakness in the Trump campaign. When Trump himself can barely remain levelheaded, I think it is really important that everyone else involved in the campaign is able to portray himself or herself as up to “presidential quality.” It became really evident early on that this is something that Melania was not capable of doing, as she blew her one opportunity to show the world who she is and to show the softer side of Trump’s campaign.
I think he had to default to Ivanka, because if he left his family out of his campaign entirely, it would make him seem cold and shut-off. Meanwhile, if he just utilized his sons in his campaign, it would further validate many people’s claims that he is a sexist.
As far as his borderline creepy comments concerning Ivanka go, I think their affect on the campaign has dwindled considerably. When he first said it, the statement took everyone aback, but I do not think it took long for people to realize that it was just another “Trump-ism” that should not be taken at face value.