What will Ivanka do next?
“I suggest that you visit FindSomethingNew.org,” Ivanka Trump told unemployed Americans back in July. Tens of millions of people were out of a job because of the pandemic, and the White House’s response was a useless website where they could Find Something New. “Now, as a result of Covid, people need to, unfortunately … learn a completely new skill,” Ivanka explained during the initiative’s launch.
Now, as a result of democracy, it looks like Ivanka may need to take her own advice. Her time as adviser to Daddy the president is drawing to an ignoble end. After four years of pretending to be a politician, Ivanka is going to have to find something else to do. As will Jared Kushner, her partner-in-crime.
Ivanka entered the White House with a fashion business and a carefully cultivated personal brand. To begin with, she desperately tried to maintain the image of herself as an aspirational everywoman. “I try to stay out of politics,” she simpered to reporters, in her capacity as special assistant to the president. She walked a fine tightrope, attempting to appeal to her father’s base without alienating the liberals she’d hobnobbed with back in New York. Steve Bannon reportedly nicknamed Ivanka “the queen of leaks” because she was constantly feeding reporters information designed to make her and Jared look good. Headlines crediting Javanka for preventing Trump from doing monstrous things routinely popped up in the early days of Trump’s term, and the pair were talked about as a “moderating influence”. In 2017, Ivanka even appeared on the cover of US Weekly with the headline “why I disagree with my dad”.
You can’t it have all, though. After four years of cheering her dad on, Ivanka’s business has been dissolved and her brand has been destroyed. She gave up attempting to appeal to liberals a while ago and has now gone full Maga. Shortly before the election, for example, she declared she was “unapologetically” anti-abortion. And, on Friday, she supported her dad’s delusions that he was the rightful winner, tweeting: “Every legally cast vote should be counted. Every illegally cast vote should not. This should not be controversial.” It’s not controversial at all, sweetie. What’s controversial is Trump trying to stop the count of votes he doesn’t like.
So what is going to happen to Jared and Ivanka next? Are they going to suffer consequences for working in a racist administration that separated migrant children from their parents and callously bungled the coronavirus crisis? Are they going to be persona non grata in New York, which Trump labelled an “anarchist jurisdiction”? Are they going to have to retreat to Florida and start new lives as talking heads on Trump TV?
I would love to think that might be the case but I’ve got a feeling they’ll just slink back to New York and rehabilitate themselves. Ivanka is rumoured to be inundated with offers for her own reality TV show and, no doubt, will get a lucrative book deal. She may even get a job as the face of Goya beans. Jared, one imagines, will continue to preside over his family’s real estate business and evict people from their apartments. They may find their former friends a little distant at first, but eventually they’ll worm their way back into their old circles. “No one’s ever going to hold up New York society as a bastion of ethics or good taste,” former Page Six editor Paula Froelich told Town and Country. “At the end of the day you can always buy your way in, so will that change? Probably not, as long as [Javanka’s] checks don’t bounce.” Which seems unlikely: the pair reported between $36,151,214 – $157,020,085 in income on their personal financial disclosures for 2019.
I wouldn’t even write off a return to politics for Javanka. If this election has shown us anything it’s that Trumpism is here to stay. Donald Trump may not be getting another term, but Ivanka or Donald Jr could well take up the mantle in 2024. The nightmare isn’t quite at an end, it’s just finding something new to throw at us.
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