If you haven’t heard about the furor over Ivanka Trump’s fashion line, and the decision by Nordstrom and other retailers’ to drop the line, well, maybe you’ve been sleeping… using pillows not purchased from the department stores in question.
The campaign, defined by the hashtag #grabyourwallet, is calling for the boycott of all Ivanka Trump’s products in addition to anything “owned, branded or operated” by the Trump family.
Actually the boycott runs further and deeper than this. See’s candies and QVC are on their hit list merely because they advertise on The New Celebrity Apprentice. (President Trump is the executive producer).Companies like Lending Tree and MillerCoors are implicated for raising funds for the Trump campaign. And Nascar and Hobby Lobby are in the boycott’s crosshairs both because the CEOs simply “endorsed” Trump. NO money, just an endorsement…
The list is extensive. This is a boycott and a half!
But it is Ivanka who is bearing the full brunt of hatred from the progressive public, simply for being the President’s daughter. Nothing seems off limits when it comes to their vitriol against her.
My incredulity over this has given way to anger as I see this happening again and again to Ivanka. Here is a woman who is clearly a hard worker, runs her own business, juggles raising three children with being a wife, mother, daughter and a successful entrepreneur. Yet she is being ruthlessly vilified, insulted, ridiculed, hated and, yes, boycotted.
On social media I’ve seen the words “skank” and “repulsive” next to a picture with Ivanka playing with her youngest child on her Instagram account. Many of the insults are revolting and not repeatable in polite company; most aim for complete character annihilation. “Heartless, spineless, soulless fraud” is a typical comment.
Another Facebook woman commented about Ivanka’s clothing line, “I wouldn’t wear Ivanka clothes. As trashy as she is. Don’t want to look like a Trump whore!!!”
Ivanka’s clothes are “trashy?” I think not. They are designed for the working business woman, and are anything but trashy.
But as many say (which again infuriates me to no end), “Ivanka’s ‘white privilege’ is showing.” How dare she try to do something with her life, work hard and create a fashion line because that career choice obviously interests her? Can she help where she is from, how she was raised or what color she is? Of course not.
But white privilege is only forgiven when you bash who you are (white), how you were raised (wealthy) and then what should you do? You should go on marches, become a social justice warrior, and be dependent on the state. Yes, that’s noble. Sigh.
Ivanka could have just as easily—with her “privilege”—ended up a messed-up party girl with a bad drug addiction. But if she were a liberal progressive, all that would be forgiven, forgotten or simply ignored.
With memories of the nationwide Women’s March still fresh in our collective minds, I expected more from people, women especially. But as per usual, it seems that if any self-empowered, intelligent hard-working entrepreneurial women dares to not toe the progressive line, she is fair game for destruction. Ivanka is just the newest case in point.
Melania Trump also is far from immune to this syndrome, and we all know how the media and everyone on the left absolutely destroyed Sarah Palin. Politics aside, Palin was, in my opinion, the poster girl for the empowered female, but she was utterly annihilated by the media and the cultural elite. (President Obama’s ‘lovely’ statement about her, “You can put lipstick on a pig…” and Sandra Bernhard calling for her to be gang raped were just two examples from the litany of hate.)
Ivanka has herself maintained a dignified silence about all this. For their part, Nordstrom and others are playing a dangerous game with half the country by simply blaming it not on politics but just on sales figures. (Of course, the two may be linked—politics could be creating a drop in sales, as people who might have bought her items a year ago are now no longer interested.) The hatred runs deep within the progressive left, and it seems shoes, bags, skirts and dresses have joined the list of things being ‘hated.’
That said, President Trump tweeting about the Nordstrom mess wasn’t a brilliant idea. It just gave more delicious fodder to his haters. Similarly, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was misguided to call out Nordstrom in such explicit terms. As for Kellyanne Conway’s exhortation on Fox, yep, that clearly is an ethics violation. Even if she didn’t intend it, it’s something that shouldn’t be repeated.
With these incidents, Trump supporters are eager to cut him and his new administration a lot of slack, but when the tables were turned many aren’t so willing to forgive and forget any violations or faux pas during Obama’s time in the White House. While these may well be teething pains, the government, last I checked, governs “for the people, by the people.”
The President specifically needs to distance himself well and truly from family business concerns.
But to all the Ivanka haters out there, can we please just cut the girl some slack? She’s not the president but someone with a business. Just allow her to run her own business!
If you were a business person with a fashion line and progressive leanings, would you be happy if someone trashed you and your products simply because they didn’t agree with your politics, or your father’s politics? I think not. Let’s play fair folks.
