Melania’s Burlesque

Regurgitating Garbo Won’t Do

Melania does not understand. But, as her person, so is her confusion common. She has misunderstood the terms of an important agreement she accepted by assuming she is the party conferring benefit on the other party, in this case, the American people, to the detriment of her peace, privacy, freedom, and pursuit of happiness. Which she resents.

It all began when Ms. Knavs was so naive as to sign an excessively lenient prenuptial agreement prior to becoming Donald J. Trump’s third wife on January 22, 2005. Who would have thought he would be elected president of the United States? And now he’s gone and gotten himself elected again, roping her into the nuisance of a second first-lady gig. That her husband is to fill for the second time the highest office in the land, deemed by many to be the most powerful position in the world, is not the point. Melania is about to be sacrificed for another four years. Intolerable! Visit some dinky children’s immigration center again? Decide on godforsaken Christmas decorations? Give garbled, vapid speeches about patriotism? Design children’s “I’m Me” pamphlets? Not one to be pimped, she’s refused. Not the perks, you understand, just the duties.

Melania doesn’t realize that the public perceives an association between herself and her illustrious husband. The ceremony that swears him in as president of the United States for a second term will likewise bestow on her a position of the highest honor, privilege, and — Heaven help us — trust. With that position come duties and responsibilities that impact the entire nation. Flattering and softball though her assignments may be, she receives an office, expert staff, advisors, and a generous budget to attend to those assignments. The role requires genuine effort on her part to be sincere, engaged, concerned, and interested as she serves as a constructive influence on her husband’s presidential term. In exchange for performing those duties she is granted enormous perks, including the countless photo ops she adores; exclusive, anytime use of powerful military aircraft; and front-page coverage when she so desires.

What that jacket incident told Melania is that the public doesn’t care about her.

Most mortals don’t get a second chance, but Melania did. This time around she must simply refrain from lying (six-language fluency), stealing (booklet projects), and plagiarizing (speeches). It was rotten luck that she happened to be on a trip to that kids’ detention center when the inspiration to wear the “I Don’t Care” jacket hit her. It was one of the few things she had done as first lady that had really given her a lift, that and draping the White House in black one Christmas. She found out quickly enough the public took umbrage at that jacket. The American public, she learned, can read and believe what they read. And millions of them read what was on the back of that cheap jacket. There was no way Melania was going to explain away that it didn’t express disgust, contempt, and scorn for the ambassadorship entrusted to her. No way they were going to believe that she, someone who studied fashion design1 and retains a personal stylist, had given no thought whatsoever — or had even looked at — what was emblazoned on the back of that jacket before she pulled it on. We all know Melania does not don cheap jackets, unless perhaps it’s one that has “I don’t Care Do U?” scrawled on the back.

What that incident told Melania is that the public doesn’t care about her. Well, they could all go off and do something they probably wouldn’t want Russians filming them doing, for all she cared. She certainly wasn’t going to mess with them again. Sure, she knew now that she can’t visit children detention centers wearing graffiti jackets and had better stick to red, green, and pine at Christmas. But she won’t run the risk. 

Melania’s decided she won’t serve at all, a recalcitrance presaged by her flagrant delinquency during her husband’s campaign. With her elderly husband engaged in a tense, strenuous, years-long fight for reelection, Melania did not appear at his rallies, introduce him at the Republican National Convention for his nomination, or show up to be included in the triumphant family photo celebrating his win. And now we’ve learned she will not reside at the White House at all, but jet between New York City and Palm Beach, Florida,2 to spend prime time doing what she loves: shopping; visiting swanky coffeehouses; sending photos of fancy fruit salads served her at breakfast in exclusive hotels to her Instagram followers; hawking her design jewelry, digital eyes, and memoir; and spending cozy evenings in her son Barron’s college dorm room to imbibe all that young man has to say about the knowledge he has been cramming in during this early leg of his journey through life. 

While intent on creating an elevated, Garbo-like allure, Melania achieved rather the opposite by spurning Jill Biden’s trivial invitation.

With just weeks elapsed since the election, Melania has already declined an invitation — traditional and perfunctory though it may be — to visit current First Lady Jill Biden for talk, tea, and a tour to demonstrate to the American public the confidence and abundant good will obtaining between administrations during the peaceful transfer of power. While intent on creating an elevated, Garbo-like allure, Melania achieved the opposite by spurning Biden’s trivial, but symbolic invitation. That refusal exposed Melania as being not the principled iconoclast fighting for a new standard of morality in politics she gives out, but an ungrateful and selfish spouse. The mystery about her, though, remains. Why be vindictive towards a nation that has given her so much?

We must hand it to her though. With her unseemly burlesque, Melania has accomplished something no one thought possible: evoking sympathy for a bully of a husband forced to endure publicly the swipes and stings of a sullen, greedy wife who appears to be very like a shrew.

And now we learn that Melania will be jetting back to D.C. for the grandest of the affairs in order to take center stage so we can get another look at this elusive, stunning political Garbo. The seasoned public has an answer for her this time around:
Don’t Bother.


  1. The Wikipedia entry on Melania has been ultra airbrushed, as has her depiction of herself in her memoir, treatment that would be highly regrettable if applied to blur the nuance in the life and thought of someone like, say, Baruch Spinoza. But in Melania’s case, getting half-baked, comic-book treatment of her life and person just doesn’t matter. ↩︎
  2. At taxpayers’ expense? ↩︎

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