Last summer, in response to the viral clip of Ivanka Trump at the G-20 Summit embarrassingly injecting herself into a conversation with world leaders out of her intellectual weight class, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, “It may be shocking to some, but being someone’s daughter actually isn’t a career qualification.”
I used to feel the same way until a game show host and shifty real estate mogul managed to trip his way into the presidency based on multiple factors but most assuredly racism. Not only is that ding dong President of the United States of America, but he has also become the new leader of the Republican Party — a party that quickly acquiesced to his request that it be remade in his image. Considering Donald Trump dragged his children along into his real estate and television ventures, it’s hard to imagine he does not seek the same now that he’s a politician.
That’s why Ivanka Trump was at the G-20. That’s why she’s presently called a senior advisor to the president. For years now, she has been trying to present herself as someone akin to Hillary Clinton’s role as First Lady: someone actually involved with making policy (you know, until Hillarycare or whatever). Ivanka is doing the lazier, stupider version of that, and while that ought to be clear to the electorate, again, Donald Trump is president of the United States. And while most people might not be thinking about President Ivanka Trump, she surely has been.
In the book, Kushner, Inc., journalist Vicky Ward quoted President Donald Trump’s former economic adviser Gary Cohn saying this about Ivanka: “She thinks she’s going to be president of the United States. She thinks this is like the Kennedys, the Bushes, and now the Trumps.”
Sadly, she is not only Trump spawn with the presidency on their minds. As Ward told the KrassenCast podcast: “I think there’s even a bit of a tussle with Don Jr. because he wouldn’t mind having a go himself” at running for president. The problem for Ivanka, as Ward explained, “The truth is, Don Jr. plays much better with Republicans.”
“He is fluent in the language of whining, dickish grievance-mongering, which has replaced modern conservatism,” Republican strategist Rick Wilson explained in an op-ed last fall about the strength of a potential presidential bid from Donald Trump Jr. “Whether the GOP wannabe 2024 field knows it or not, it’s DJTJ’s opening shot for the 2024 nomination.”
Donald Trump has previously swatted away his son’s teases of running for office, but as those who read the Atlantic story centered on Ivanka and Donald Jr. competing to be the heir to the Trump political dynasty know, Donald Sr. has warmed to his son’s prospects in light of his fanfare among Republicans.
In a fairer world, we wouldn’t have to think of this, but again, Donald Trump is president of the United States of America, and should he be reelected, we should all probably begin to consider more seriously the chances of President Donald Trump Jr. and/or President Ivanka Trump. Based on a new poll, some Republicans are already open to the idea. In the newly released SurveyMonkey poll for Axios, 29 percent of Republicans and leaners said they would consider voting for Donald Trump Jr. in 2024. By comparison, 16 percent said they would consider voting for Ivanka Trump.
It is often easy to dismiss political polls much less those for an election so far away, And yet, given the abnormality and absurdity of the Trump era, now more than ever should everyone pay attention to obvious signaling. Granted, Mike Pence has the greatest amount of support in the poll with 40 percent of respondents saying they would consider a vote for him, realistically, if Donald Trump is still president, it will have meant that all the damage he has brought to this nation and the world does not matter to the majority of the electorate. His racism, his sexism, his xenophobia, his incompetence, his narcissism, his greed, his corruption, his abuses of power, his criminal behavior, his utter stupidity, his lack of decency, his contempt for the rule of law, and his damn tweeting will have been given a stamp of approval.
It will mean he has successfully exploited both the racism of the public and the racism built into our institutions to bend the country to his will. If he can get away with everything he has done and remain in power, why would that greedy narcissist rush to hand that over to Mike Pence? Trump wants to be treated as both strongman and royal, and if he manages to remain president, the GOP will have officially become a monarchist party.
One Trump as president is a lifetime’s worth of misery: please don’t make me suffer through one or two more.