Her father may have been voted into the highest office in the land, but have the results of the US election left Ivanka Trump feeling low? Deep down, did the former first daughter hope Kamala Harris might prevail?
The idea that Ivanka, who appears to have made enormous amounts of money during her dad’s first term, might have secretly been rooting for Harris seems preposterous. But consider, for a moment, the evidence, which is this: a blue pantsuit. Ivanka, who was absent for much of her dad’s campaign, rocked up to Trump’s victory party – creepy “slumlord” husband in tow – wearing a bright blue ensemble. Since blue is associated with Democrats, tongues started wagging. Was this a fashion statement or a political statement? Was Ivanka trying to send a message that she was Team Kamala?
Online speculation has been feverish but everyone can calm down now: I’ve finally solved the mystery of Ivanka and the Blue Pantsuit. I can now exclusively reveal that, based on a very strong hunch, I reckon the former first daughter wore blue because she thought it looked nice. That’s it. No deeper meaning.
Speculation around Ivanka’s pantsuit does, however, point to a broader issue: something you might term damsel in distress syndrome. There seems to be this weird urge for some liberals to frame conservative women as misled victims of Maga men who need to be saved. We saw it happen with Melania Trump, for example. She grimaced for a second during Trump’s inauguration in January 2017 and a gif of her expression immediately trended online with the hashtag #FreeMelania. An awful lot of people seemed to decide that Melania, rather than being just as conniving and power-hungry as her spouse, deserved our sympathy.
Damsel in distress syndrome also seemed to play into the Harris campaign’s messaging strategy with conservative white women. There was a lot of buzz around an advert voiced by Julia Roberts encouraging women to vote for Harris, regardless of what their husbands thought. Targeted Instagram ads also informed women that their vote was secret. The underlying assumption being that conservative women wanted to vote for Harris but were too intimidated to do so. Which is patronising as hell. I’m sure some white women might have felt pressure from their Maga husbands to vote Trump. But the fact is white women tend to vote Republican. They vote for what they consider to be their own best interests, and sometimes whiteness trumps womanhood.
Benevolent sexism also appears to have influenced attitudes towards Usha Vance. Despite the fact that JD’s wife is accomplished and ambitious – and seems to have shaped the incoming vice-president’s political career – people seem keen to cast her in the role of the suffering wife. They seem to find it almost impossible to imagine she agrees with Trump’s incredibly bigoted platform; particularly as the far right have targeted her with racist attacks. But, just because you have brown skin and your parents were immigrants, it doesn’t automatically mean you’re going to lean left. (Nikki Haley and Priti Patel are certainly testament to that.) I don’t know if Usha agrees with everything her husband has been saying, but she seems to want power just as much as he does.
Then there’s Ivanka. The former first daughter was complicit in her father’s ghastly policies for four years, yet there are still people who seem to think she might not completely agree with him. And, to be fair, that’s not just damsel in distress syndrome – it’s Ivanka’s deliberate PR. Both she and Jared Kushner, her husband and partner-in-crime, were strategic about playing both sides during Trump’s first term. Every time Trump advanced a policy that might be unpopular with Javanka’s former high society New York friends, anonymous sources would pop up in the media explaining that Ivanka and Jared were pressuring him to change his mind.
It remains to be seen whether Ivanka will fully step back into the political spotlight in the near future. But it’s a fair bet that Javanka will find a way to use Trump’s presidency for their benefit. Kushner may already be drawing up plans for the waterfront property in Gaza he’s said he’s so keen on. And Ivanka may be revisiting her ambitions to become the first female president of the US. Far from being upset her dad has another term in the White House, Ivanka is probably wondering when it’s her turn.
• Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
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