On Tuesday, writing for Vanity Fair, Trump family biographer Emily Jane Fox revealed how first daughter Ivanka Trump’s political strategy of playing the “dissociated princess” has played to her advantage — and how recent events suggest her strategy is reaching its limits.
“Ivanka’s ability to operate on this otherworldly separate track — both from the president and from the everyday realities and rules that surround most Americans — was both an asset to the kind of power she cared about and a contrast from her father,” wrote Fox. “She ignored the harsher realities of the administration she was part of by creating a distinct narrative that she could market to those who were open to buying it as a way to both aid her father and whatever role she would ultimately decide to take on once he leaves the White House. It is a kind of impulse control and compartmentalization that the elder Trump does not possess. Her father is temperamentally unable not to dwell on and rave about exactly what is on his mind or the public consciousness at that precise moment, even when it’s in his obvious political interest to do so.”
“Her dissociative ability played out again over the weekend,” wrote Fox. “The controversy unfolded on Thursday, when Wichita State University Tech decided it would not air a speech that Ivanka had prerecorded for its virtual graduation ceremony on Saturday. The school made the decision after students and staff condemned the White House’s response to the protests in the wake of George Floyd’s killing. Ivanka had been asked to deliver the address in February, and she recorded the address, which largely talked about coronavirus and did not address matters of race, before the protests began.” However, following outrage, the school acknowledged the lineup was insensitive and canceled her engagement. Continue reading.