**Ivanka Trump was once considered the one hope for reining in her father President Donald Trump's more extreme policies. As a popular figure in liberal, wealthy New York, and with a long-standing reputation as someone who was vocal about women in the workplace, it was widely believed that she - and only she - could temper her father's more unpalatable views. Yet since January, she's failed miserably on many fronts to speak out against her father's policies - even in those areas she promised to fight against him, including women's rights and LGBTQ rights. Most recently, she failed to stop him ending an Obama era policy that promoted closing the gender and racial pay gap by encouraging companies to disclose gender and race information alongside wages. Here, two writers debate whether her silence is now unforgiveable or not... **
'Yes, Ivanka Trump's silence is unforgivable' says Anna Brech
Hours after President Donald Trump signed an executive order that barred citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US in January, his daughter Ivanka posted a photo of herself to Instagram wearing a $5,000 Carolina Herrera gown, all dolled up for a night out on the town.
As thousands of immigrants were detained at airports across America and furious protests spilled out onto the streets, Ivanka’s ill-timed fashion statement was widely condemned as insensitive and tone-deaf.
Supporters of the president’s daughter said she felt “terrible” about the faux pas. But this is a woman who is meticulous about her image. She has bachelor’s degree in economics and very rarely has a hair out of place, let alone firing out a vastly inappropriate social update at a time of humanitarian crisis.
It’s more likely that Ivanka knew exactly what she was doing. Her little act of flippancy was typical of the fingers-in-my-ears approach she takes when it comes to Trump senior’s more noxious policies (read: most of them).
Having grown up in the liberal elite of New York, Ivanka is a natural Democrat who has built a brand around championing working women. Donald’s raging, stick-it-to-the-man way of operating is anathema to Ivanka’s softly hued universe of cashmere jumpers and empathy talk. And yet, by taking up a senior position in his White House administration, Ivanka is directly tying herself to her father’s toxic universe.
Ivanka thinks that by smiling sweetly and mostly saying nothing while her father destroys environmental treaties and curtails transgender rights, she will distance herself from him. She believes that by attending conferences on female empowerment and by generally behaving with poise and restraint, she will somehow negate the hostile misogyny of a man who was caught on tape boasting about sexual aggression.
There is no line in the sand. You can’t choose your relatives but by taking up reign in the West Wing – a move motivated by power rather than filial loyalty – Ivanka is tying herself to her dad’s fate. If she really is there as a “moderating force”, as some sources have suggested, she should pull her socks up and get some of her enlightened policies on child tax credits and paid family leave pushed through. Or she should prevent her dad from clamping down on the rights of almost every minority group.
She hasn’t been successful in either of these missions to date, and so we must take from the evidence. Ivanka endorses her dad’s riot of appalling, hate-smeared dictates merely by the fact that she does not protest them. All it takes for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing. And this is apparently a “good person” with real influence; Ivanka has the ear of the president as few others do. We must judge her by association.
No, says Edwina Langley
We don’t know what goes on behind closed doors.
We don’t know, for instance, that when Ivanka Trump read @realDonaldTrump’s tweets on 26th July, those declaring transgender people are no longer welcome to serve in the US military, that she didn’t storm into her father’s office and slam a copy of the constitution down – hard – on his desk.
This is what we do know...
In April this year, Ivanka gave an interview to CBS News. In it, she was asked what she had to say to those holding her personally accountable for not speaking out on gay rights, women’s rights, Planned Parenthood, climate change – issues allegedly close to her heart which the president she advises appears to ignore, withdraw funding from or deny at any opportune moment.
‘I would say not to conflate lack of public denouncement with silence,’ she replied. ‘I think there are multiple ways to have your voice heard.
‘In some cases it’s through protest and it’s through going on the nightly news and talking about, or denouncing, every issue that you disagree with. Other times it is quietly and directly and candidly. So where I disagree with my father, he knows it. And I express myself with total candour.’
Ivanka understands Donald Trump. Whilst historically, protest and public denouncement might have influenced decision-making in the Oval Office, she knows neither wash with her father. He ridicules protestors and if able to sack those who publicly condemn him, then sack ‘em he does.
The Democratic Party, it can safely be said, is ineffective in its current state. Those wanting to act in opposition to the status quo, to any of Trump’s hare-brained intentions usually bashed out illiterately in 140 characters, have a better (I’d argue, only) chance at success if they operate from within his administration.
If you want to play ball, you’ve got to be in the game.
I genuinely believe Ivanka sees herself as a force for good. She said as much to CBS. When asked what she thinks about ‘accusations’ she is ‘complicit’ in what is happening to the White House, she responded, ‘if being complicit is wanting to… be a force for good and to make a positive impact, then I’m complicit.’
A clever – or outlandishly ignorant – interpretation of the question. But I have no doubt ‘to do good’ is her motivation.
Is she effective in this capacity? Not hugely. Her tweet in support of the LGBTQ community during Pride month in June looks woefully inadequate when pitted against her father’s threatening tweets to the same community just a month later. Similarly, her passionate support of the Paris Climate Agreement was rendered worthless when Trump withdrew the US from the agreement anyway.
But it cannot be ignored that she is making headway in some areas. She is a campaigner for paid family leave, for instance, and speaks articulately on the subject, as demonstrated through a recent letter to the Wall Street Journal. Her plan to introduce a national paid leave programme, to bring the US’s approach in line with other industrialised nations, was given the go-ahead in May’s budget proposal and budget director Mick Mulvaney has allocated $25billion to the scheme.
This will need a miracle to get through Congress. And if it doesn’t get through, will that be Ivanka’s fault too?
To blame her for this, or failing to prevent her father’s bigoted and backward ideas from reaching the airwaves, when many of them are announced on a whim (his aforementioned tweets on the transgender community blindsided military leaders), is to diminish full responsibility from Trump and Trump alone.
Ivanka may not be immediately transforming social policy into the headline-worthy example of progress many had hoped she might. But at least she’s not making it worse. When we think of some of Trump’s other hires – Sean Spicer, for instance; the (former) White House press secretary who denied Hitler used chemical weapons – Ivanka Trump, as a presidential advisor, is a virtual godsend.
A timeline of Ivanka Trump's affiliation with her father's Presidency
February 2017
Trump Hits Out At Nordstrom For ‘Unfairly’ Dropping Ivanka’s Fashion Line
Trump lashed out at US retailer Nordstrom on Twitter following news that the department store had ‘unfairly’ dropped his daughter Ivanka's fashion line from its stores and website.
Ivanka Trump Is Being Criticised For Posting An ‘Inappropriate’ Photo
Ivanka garnered criticism online after posting an ‘inappropriate’ photo to her Twitter account, showing the 35-year-old sat at the President’s desk in the Oval Office. Many Twitter users asked why Ivanka was sitting in a chair reserved for the person elected as President of the United States, and pointed out the problem of nepotism.
March 2017
Why Was Ivanka Trump Branded A ‘Hypocrite’ For Wearing This Dress?
In Donald Trump’s first ever Address to Congress, the new President chose to focus on the importance of buying American products, with a new slogan: ‘Buy American and hire American.’ However, Ivanka didn’t seem to get the memo, and wore a fuchsia pink cocktail dress for her appearance at Congress, made by the French designer Roland Mouret.
Ivanka Trump's White House Role Has Been Confirmed
It was revealed that that Ivanka will serve as an assistant to President Trump, which proved controversial as many cite nepotism as a major problem in Trump’s administration: Ivanka’s husband Jared Kusher also serves in Trump’s administration as a senior advisor.
April 2017
Ivanka Trump’s Clothing Line Is Made In A Factory Where Workers Earn $1 An Hour
Revelations about the provenance of Ivanka’s eponymous fashion line cast the 35-year-old's business practices in a very dubious light, when it was revealed that a Chinese factory used by the G-111 Apparel Group (the company that holds the exclusive license to make Ivanka-branded clothing) pay near or below China’s minimum wage.
May 2017
Ivanka Trump: Hectic Campaign Trail Gave Me No Time For Massages Or Meditation
Ivanka revealed that during her father’s presidential campaign, she was so under pressure to juggle business demands that she went into ‘survival mode’ and had no time for massages or any ‘self-care’.
June 2017
‘Why I Disagree With My Dad’ Is The Ivanka Trump Meme We’ve Always Wanted
Ivanka did an interview with US Weekly where she revealed that while she does love and support her father, there are certain issues she disagrees with, such as the controversial exit from the Paris Agreement on climate change. The headline that ran said: ‘Ivanka Takes A Stand: Why I Disagree With My Dad’, and the Internet soon gave it the meme treatment, with people using the headline alongside troubled father/child relationships in pop culture, from Luke Skywalker to Tyrion Lannister.
August 2017
Ivanka Trump Seeks To Downplay Her Influence In The White House Amid Transgender Row
Soon after Trump declared that he wanted to ban transgender people from serving in the military, Senior White House adviser and First Daughter Ivanka Trump said she ‘desperately wants to lower expectations’ of what she can achieve within her father’s administration. She wants people to reassess her position of power and ability to intervene with Trump’s policies.