President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka was in Israel Monday for no reason other than "unapologetic nepotism," reports Holly Baxter in the British newspaper the Independent.
Trump and her husband Jared Kushner were there to take a "victory lap" alongside the president for something Baxter says they had little to do with.
"She and Jared spent the weekend addressing crowds at a rally in Tel Aviv, doing a victory lap for something they weren’t even really supposed to have had anything to do with," Baxter says
The political résumé of Trump's eldest daughter, who served as his advisor during his first term to much mockery and scorn, is, notes Baxter, "in fact, limited to “daughter of Donald, wife of Jared.”
And though Kushner, also an advisor to Trump during his first term, maintains no role whatsoever in his father-in-law's administration, it "didn’t stop him from having a hand in the most delicate piece of geopolitical diplomacy conducted in about a decade," Baxter writes.
"Now he’s planning the future of Gaza alongside Tony Blair, which I’m sure will make anyone who’s been even casually following developments in the region feel totally reassured," Baxter adds.
The role of Ivanka, whose most relevant political experience, Baxter says, "is having once been photographed near a peace treaty," and her husband, she writes, is ripe for streaming.
"The entire spectacle feels like something out of a mid-budget Netflix satire about American decline, like maybe if House of CardsHouse of Cardshad a more dystopian reboot," she says. "The president’s child, who once hawked $500 blouses on Instagram, is now acting like an unofficial ambassador to a foreign parliament."
Kushner's got main character energy in this show, too, she says.
"And her husband — a guy who used to do real estate, badly — is deciding the future of Gaza alongside a former British prime minister whose most famous political move was following George W Bush into Iraq because of weapons that didn’t exist."
Presidential children in the past, Baxter says, have usually been "props rather than proxies," but she says, "then again, Melania’s recently been on the phone to Putin, so maybe it’s all just whatever," referring to the First Lady's foray into foreign diplomacy in which she alleged that talks with Russia's president secured the release of Ukrainian war children.
Baxter points out the familiar political hypocrisy that's immune to criticism from the MAGA base, saying, "One can only imagine the field day Fox News would’ve had if Malia Obama had rocked up to the Knesset during a precarious diplomatic moment."
And although Ivanka has remained elusive from her father's second term, Baxter says to brace for her sudden ubiquity, writing, "Ivanka’s return to public life feels both inevitable and slightly surreal."
Surreal or not, something that was once blatantly forbidden (see: Hunter Biden), is, under this current administration, absolutely acceptable and expected, Baxter says.
"Trumpism reframed corruption itself, so things like this — once egregious missteps or at least moments to pretend to be slightly embarrassed about — can never be used against them," she writes.
Nepotism, she says, is a feature in the Trump administration, not a bug, and the fact that Ivanka has no experience whatsoever is perfectly fine.
"Nepotism has long stopped being shameful for Republicans and is now aspirational —proof that you trust your own blood more than The Swamp . . . She’s the anti-expert, the elegant embodiment of the idea that pedigree alone is qualification enough."