Opinions may be deeply divided on Donald J Trump but there is no denying that his third wife, Melania, is her own person. In the most closely fought presidential campaign in recent US history, where spouses have been as important for the narrative as the candidate, she has kept firmly out of the limelight. And now her memoir Melania is set to debut just as her husband and his Democratic Party opponent Kamala Harris enter the final lap of the fraught race.
Yet, in a typically supercilious and perhaps even xenophobic way, the mainstream US media continues to not give the Former First Lady (FFLOTUS) her due. Melania is no Hillary Clinton—another very unique FFLOTUS, given her subsequent pioneering run for the White House—but nor is she a Michelle Obama. In fact, she seems to be out to prove that a FFLOTUS today can also aspire to many things other than just the Oval Office.
The latest “controversy” unearthed by the anti-Trump US media is that Melania (or at least “her team”) demanded $250,000 for an interview before the release of her eponymous memoir and a non-disclosure agreement regarding content and photos. The insinuation is that her demanding money is unethical as Melania is a prominent political candidate’s wife, but many could just as well see it as yet another assertion by her that she is a separate personality.
Melania has barely been seen on the presidential campaign trail this year. Apart from two speaking appearances for Log Cabin Republicans—for which she was “controversially” paid generously—she joined her husband for a fundraiser hosted by billionaire investor John Paulson in Palm Beach and at the Republican National Convention in July, though she did not speak. There could not be a more emphatic assertion of an individual profile and agenda.
That Trump himself is okay with this, given his supposedly deeply conservative and misogynistic MAGA (Make America Great Again) mindset and following, should stir some introspection among those who cannot stand them. Is he really as boorish as he is made out to be? Is she really as wooden and unidimensional as she is made out to be? Or is the US media deliberately misreading and misrepresenting both Trumps to suit its own narrative?
Imagine if Michelle had not been there to boost the normally professorial and understated Obama’s emotional quotient with her forceful and warm persona. Would the Democratic Party’s rank-and-file supporters have tolerated a deliberate distancing by their candidate’s spouse, no matter how “forward thinking” they are posited as? For that matter, would any other Republican candidate’s wife have had the gumption to do her own thing, as Melania has?
Even the excerpts of her memoir Melania that have emerged ahead of the release underline her avowedly individual persona. Besides recounting her early life in Slovenia, her modelling career and how she became Trump’s third wife, she has written supporting abortion rights, a topic few politicians, let alone FFLOTUSes, would dare to address suo motu. That too in the middle of a presidential election campaign that remains tantalisingly too close to call.
She writes, “It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government…Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body? A woman’s fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes.”
And she also asserts, “Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body. I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.” Interestingly, the November ballot in Florida, the state the Trumps are officially domiciled in, includes protection of abortion rights. Trump has said he will vote yes; going by her book, Melania is likely to vote no. Gutsy or what?
Would “Mr Kamala Harris”—Doug Emhoff—dare to say anything that strays even an inch off the official Democratic line set by his wife and her election team? That Melania has managed to do just that consistently also says a lot about the dynamics of the Trump marriage. More than either of his previous spouses, Melania has asserted her right to choose her own path even though she has been largely dismissed as a bimbo because of her past profession.
In Melania, she also reveals she differs with him on another Trumpian shibboleth: immigration. Apparently, she even persuaded Trump, then President, into rescinding his much-reviled immigrants’ family separation order in June 2018. At that time, his backtracking was ascribed to public pressure. No one would have thought that Melania could (or would) be the migrants’ trump card; it was just far more comforting to ascribe it to “widespread public pressure”.
People were surprised when she did not create a ruckus over his peccadilloes, not even when they were raked up in this campaign. The memoir may shed light on whether that was due to a strong, old-fashioned bond between the couple, or a desire to not rock the boat with her young son in mind, or something else entirely. And even if assertions in her memoir are disbelieved or dismissed, the fact is that Melania has never actually done what people expected.
Melania was not a conventional FLOTUS; she neither sought to emulate or better what her predecessors did nor did she seek to carve out a separate place in the limelight. She did not seem to want that limelight at all, even if it lit the path to the White House. Since 2020, she has become an even more distinctly different FFLOTUS, detached from party politics and staying quiet—even when her room was raided by federal agents looking for dirt on Trump.
If last time around she was barely seen in the White House or anywhere else with her husband, if her husband makes his way back there this time she will probably not go there with him. Melania wants to stay in New York to be with her son Barron—Trump’s youngest progeny. That would certainly be a first for a FLOTUS as none of her predecessors deliberately did so: even Bess Truman did not live there simply because it was being renovated!
Few in the US have deciphered Melania accurately, so her memoir may be useful for many (including those conflicted about Trump himself) to begin to understand both of them. Despite his well-known aversion to written words—unless confined to bullet points—Trump should do some speed reading of Melania now, if he has not done so already. Melania standing by him has done the Trump campaign more good than she shall be given credit for by anyone.
The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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