New Yorker: Ivanka Trump's terrible book helps explain the Trump family's ethos.

[hedda_foil]

Last edited Tue Jan 10, 2017, 01:57 AM - Edit history (1)

On edit: Sorry, here's a link to the whole piece.
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/ivanka-trumps-terrible-book-helps-explain-the-trump-family-ethos
I

Ivanka Trump’s 2009 self-help book, “The Trump Card,” opens with an unlikely sentence: “In business, as in life, nothing is ever handed to you.” Ivanka quickly adds caveats. “Yes, I’ve had the great good fortune to be born into a life of wealth and privilege, with a name to match,” she writes. “Yes, I’ve had every opportunity, every advantage. And yes, I’ve chosen to build my career on a foundation built by my father and grandfather.” Still, she insists, she and her brothers didn’t attain their positions in their father’s company “by any kind of birthright or foregone conclusion.”

The cognitive dissonance on display here might prompt a reader who wishes to preserve her sanity to close the book immediately. But “The Trump Card” is instructive, if not as a manual for young women interested in “playing to win in work and life,” as the subtitle advertises, then as a telling portrait of the Trump-family ethos, an attitude that appears quite unkind even when presented by Ivanka, its best salesman, in the years preceding her father’s political rise.

Ivanka spends much of “The Trump Card” massaging the difficulty in her premise. What can a woman born with a silver spoon in her mouth teach people who use plastic forks to eat salads at their desks? To answer this question, Ivanka employs an audacious strategy: all of her advantages have actually been handicaps, she says. When she was appointed to the board of directors at Trump Entertainment Resorts, at age twenty-five, the situation was “stacked all the way against me.” Her last name, her looks, her youth, her privilege have all colluded to make people underestimate her. And when she is overestimated—when people believe that she has an “inherent understanding of all things related to real estate and finance,” because her father is Donald Trump—this, too, “can be a big disadvantage.”

This messy argument comes with correspondingly messy metaphors. “We’ve all got our own baggage,” Ivanka writes, before explaining what she means by baggage: “Whatever we do, whatever our backgrounds, we’ve all had some kind of advantage on the way.” Ivanka compares herself to a runner positioned on the outside track, whose head start at the beginning is just an illusion. “In truth, the only advantage is psychological; each runner ends up covering the same ground by the end of the race.” Soon, though—by page nine—she has grown tired of pretending to be her reader’s equal. “Did I have an edge, getting started in business?” she asks. “No question. But get over it. And read on.”

[/blockquote
Daddy's dearest is just like her daddy dearest. Or something like that.

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. A stupid book that probably got remaindered

Within weeks of release. The copies not purchased by Donald were probably pulped.

[FarCenter]

14. Available new in paperback for $9.38 with Prime shipping.

Used from $1.11.

[Vinca]

17. Look for it at the dollar store.

Next to the unsold bin of Palin books.

[gratuitous]

2. Drop her in the middle of South Sudan

Let's see how she does there.

[Warpy]

3. Drop her on the south side of most US cities

with no way to cry to Daddykins and see how well she does.

[madaboutharry]

4. She is really obnoxious.

It seems to me Trump's kids have all of his worst traits. Arrogance tops the list.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

5. The problem is, people fall for this poor little rich girl BS.

Idiots.

[orwell]

6. My standard comeback to anything Drumpf...

...Go F*ck yourself!

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

7. Oh please

[oasis]

8. I can't wait until all that shit comes tumbling down after Pop's meltdown.

[SunSeeker]

9. She really is a horrible person, like the rest of her family. nt

[Maru Kitteh]

10. Well, when you sleep your way to the top

Some people will resent you for it.

Poor little rich asshole.

[Hekate]

12. Maru, no. Those photos of Ivanka are as a young teen being sexualized by her father....

She's very young and there's a series of photos that were published of her and her daddy that just make my stomach churn. A lot of women see it. I don't know how far he took it -- I would never make a guess -- but he sexualized her early, and in those photos he has the same look on his face that he's had in other photos where he's showing off his possessions: "Looke at me, suckers, I OWN this."

That is one sick family, and it goes back generations.

As regards Ivanka's behavior as an adult, I'm with you there. She's smooth and polished, unlike her father. But she reeks of arrogant entitlement. In that respect, she is no better than the man who begot her, and that is on her.

[Solly Mack]

13. Yes :(

I think he sexualized his daughter as well. I think he still does. I think even now he sees her as his true other self. Raised to be the perfect partner, the perfect person on his arm - to his thinking anyway. I'd wager all women fall short of his idealized view of Ivanka.

And yes, she now reeks of the same sense of entitlement as her father.

I can feel for the child she was and still not like the adult she became.

[world wide wally]

11. I will admit that is one thing Hillary probably lied about.

When she was asked to say something nice about Turnip (or whatever his fucking name is) she said that she admired his children.


Right

[crazycatlady]

18. Until the campaign Ivanka and Chelsea were friends

Not sure if they still are.

[hatrack]

15. Well, well - the Designer Shitweasel can't write, either . . .

Just like Daddy.

[Tanuki]

16. In fairness......

it was probably ghost-written by Meredith McIver.

[calguy]

19. Gotta hand it to Ivanka.....

Poor girl had to start out with nothing more than a few million from her dad and the clothes on her back. And somehow, she managed to make a success out of her plight.