Ivanka Trump Was My Best Friend. Now She's MAGA Royalty

[babylonsister]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/11/ivanka-trump-was-my-best-friend-now-shes-maga-royalty

First Family
Ivanka Trump Was My Best Friend. Now She’s 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 us—“Why would you tell me to read a book about fucking poor people?” she once asked—and 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 America’s struggling working class than elected officials and the creaky bureaucracies they presided over. But aligning herself with her dad’s 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?

I’ve been a good Wasp and kept quiet until now, even as I’ve grown increasingly repulsed by Ivanka’s ability to aid and abet her father. I’ve 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 father’s behest, still clearly hoping that she can be enriched and adored by the public she exploits even as she’s 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 true—the damage the Trump family has done is unforgivable, even if perpetrated by my childhood best friend—I 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.It’s 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 wasn’t 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]

1. 👀

This looks interesting

[NameAlreadyTaken]

2. How could someone like Ivanka be a friend?

[dhol82]

6. It started when they were thirteen.

[malaise]

3. Four years too late

[dhol82]

4. It was a good article.

If I were the author, I would watch my back.

[SharonAnn]

28. Yes it is a good article. Pretty much what I thought about her.

[UTUSN]

5. Another one whose silence enabled the worst for 4 years.

[mr_lebowski]

10. Her 'silence' about what? nt

[UTUSN]

35. Her "silence" was not saying the stuff she's saying now, after the fact, too late for anything

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]

36. All I see is stuff like 'I'm disappointed in her' ... it's not proof of crimes or something ...

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]

37. If you're referring to Melania's friend, Melania put out some retaliatory tweets.

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]

17. What could she have said or done that would have

made a difference? As she said in the article, the trumps would have thrown her to the wolves.

[cstanleytech]

30. Unlikely as far as Ivanka goes however it might have had

an impact on Trump's co-conspirator Republican allies in the House and Senate especially during the 2018 elections.

[LiberalLovinLug]

34. That's it. There really is nothing anyone says that knew them, that would change any minds

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]

48. At least half of the MAGATS know nothing about what Mary Trump exposed. nt

[UTUSN]

40. The UNpresident throws *anybody* who criticizes to the wolves. & what difference

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]

7. I've been curious about her for two reasons:

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]

38. Chelsea has stated publicly that she loathes Ivanka

Ivanka probably hadn’t discovered her grasping avarice and thirst for power before the election.

[dalton99a]

8. May her life be continually enhanced by ever improving kidneys and nose jobs

a picture of perfection personified, untouched by fucking poor people - until karma arrives

[Newest Reality]

19. With big enough kidneys,

she may tip over forwards and mess up the nose job.

[Blue Owl]

21. Melania is eyeing up one of those kidneys

[live love laugh]

9. Ivanka is a POS.

There. I feel better for saying it.

[TxVietVet]

29. Ivanka AKA MAGAt Barbie

[Mike 03]

11. Howard Stern has been trying to get this point through to the MAGAts for

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]

27. the daddy issues don't address his misogyny.

I suspect mother was not motherly and didn't come to his aid when needed.

[lunatica]

39. Your suspicion is partly correct

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.

It’s in the opening chapter in Mary Trump’s book. Mary Trump is Trump’s 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 Alzheimer’s.

I recommend the book. It’s very well written and you learn a lot about Trump.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

41. I based my assessment on my own personal psychotherapy.

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]

43. Trump does wake up issues in one's life doesn't he?

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]

12. "He would barely acknowledge me except to ask if Ivanka was the prettiest or the most popular girl

in our grade.". Why that doesn't sound like him at all.....

[smirkymonkey]

45. She just reinforces the fact that he's always been a misogynistic pig.

I can't believe he had the nerve to comment on her weight or the changes in her body. What a creep!

[WhiskeyGrinder]

13. Nothing new here.

But most of all, I miss the time when the Trump family quest for power was not dangerous to the country.

The mourning cry of privilege.

[leftieNanner]

24. Trump hasn't been good for our economy

But he's been Gold Star Fabulous for the publishing industry!

[lunatica]

44. Those same books will be good historical sources in the future

Just like knowing about Hitler is useful to history.

It’ll 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.

[lunatica]

47. I don't disagree

But I guess I see these people as just another way of getting insight into their kind. They’re 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.

[Raven]

15. Why write an article like this...after the damage has been done and with

no other purpose that I can discern other than to make the author feel better about herself.

[babylonsister]

18. I'm glad she did if only for my curiosity. nt

[maxrandb]

16. Sigh...my response when I hear something about Princess Sparkle Pony

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]

22. I like this post.

And I share your sentiments.

A fucking bunch of ignorant fucksticks indeed!

[maddiemom]

25. My favorite description was that of the woman who said Ivanka was:

"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]

32. Great post!

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]

50. I look forward to the day when I hear someone say something about Donnie Dipshit

and I have to go to Google's Search Bar and type in the words; "is Donnie Trump still alive?"

[Tommymac]

42. "This fucking family and their supporters, are like dog-shit ...

stuck in the grooves of your tennis shoes."




GOTV GA

[Hekate]

23. Interesting. Being BFFs when you're a young teen (13+) is so intense it casts a glamor over ...

...whatever changes a person undergoes for a very long time. You cherish the memory. You don’t mention the flaws after you drift apart. And if it turns out your former friend’s 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]

26. ...Like WOW, y'know? Classic case of privilege gone bad just like Hollywood wrote it!

[Larissa]

31. Javanka got savaged

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. It’s that kind of place. They had money, they had youth, they had celebrity. They were thin. I’m told that their manners were impeccable, so you’d never know that his father was an actual felon and her father a de facto one. Besides, you can’t hold family against someone, can you? We don’t choose how we’re born.

But from then on, we do make choices, and we’re accountable for those.

Jared and Ivanka are about to be held accountable.

They chose to tether their fortunes to her father’s, 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 father’s 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?

It’s a question for the whole shockingly populous court of collaborators around President Trump. Time will tell. Trumpism isn’t ending. Trump himself isn’t going away. He’ll have his PAC, maybe he’ll have his new media venture, there’s that rumor — I’d call it a threat — that he’s 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 didn’t fit neatly into the Trump administration’s 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 Junior’s old crowd was going to be surprised or appalled.

Same old menace, new prey.

Pence’s and Pompeo’s fellow evangelicals didn’t and won’t 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 won’t work, not even a suite at the Trump International Hotel, because there’s nothing more pathetic than lingering at a party once the music has stopped.

Mar-a-Loco makes questionable sense. It’s Melania’s 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 they’re Aspen, not Asbury Park.
I have suggestions. North Korea, for one. Ivanka has met its ruler and been to the Demilitarized Zone. She wouldn’t 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 family’s presidential adventure full circle.

But it’s New York City, where Javanka still own an apartment, that’s surely drawing their gaze. And that’s, 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 doesn’t 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 Huckabee’s pies or Steven Bannon’s 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 can’t protest that they moderated the president, not after his past immoderate weeks of raging against democracy and conniving to subvert it. They can’t 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]

33. The icky paragraphs

Mr. Trump always handed over the credit card after a little feigned outrage about how much money he was giving her mother. He would barely acknowledge me except to ask if Ivanka was the prettiest or the most popular girl in our grade. Before I learned that the Trumps have no sense of humor about themselves, I remember answering honestly that she was probably in the top five. “Who’s prettier than Ivanka?” I recall him asking once with genuine confusion, before correctly naming the two girls I’d had in mind. He described one as a young Cindy Crawford, while the other he said had a great figure.

Though he never remembered my name, he seemed to have a photographic memory for changes in my body. I’ll 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, “Don’t worry. She doesn’t need it. He’s doing her a favor.” Conversely, he’d usually congratulate me if I’d lost weight.