The jacket attackers should get off Melania’s back
Before I defend Melania Trump, I will concede one point: the jacket she wore en route to a detention centre for immigrant children was not a good look.
As literal fashion statements go, “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?” — the words emblazoned on the back of a jacket that is now as scandalous as Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress — is problematic due to what psychologists call “situational context.” Mrs. Trump was not going to a rave or a fundraiser for anarchists. She was visiting displaced kids who’ve been torn from their parents. She was on a compassion mission.
But her jacket ended up on a distraction mission.
“Melania, how dare you?” the world demanded to know, as images of her $39 (U.S.) Zara coat unzipped the Internet. “Melania, how could you? You’re visiting children suffering from an unspeakably cruel policy put in place by your husband and this is the message your clothes are sending? YOU REALLY DON’T CARE?”
And with that, I will defend Melania Trump.
The first point: she did not actually wear this contentious jacket while visiting detained immigrants. While that’s the impression you may get from dozens of headlines, it’s wrong. She wasn’t garbed in a jacket that telegraphed her lack of empathy with diabolical clarity while gazing into cages as toddlers begged for their parents. That never happened.
She simply wore the travel jacket while boarding her plane at Andrews Air Force Base. But when she landed in McAllen, Texas, she was in a cream, double-pocket shirt with no words on the back.
So if you believe she picked this flight jacket to showcase her apathy toward refugees, you now have two logical dilemmas: 1. She didn’t wear it while visiting refugees. 2. She visited refugees.
That last point can’t be overstated. If Melania Trump really doesn’t care, why bother to make the trip? Why would she issue an earlier statement, in which she called for America to be “a country that governs with heart,” a clear shot at Donald Trump? Why would she pressure her husband to reverse his policy of separating families, which he did?
Wouldn’t it be easier to pull an Ivanka and clam up inside a shell of inertia?
But let’s get back to the situational context, and add a historical filter.
The last time Melania went to Texas on a compassion missi- on, to meet with victims of Hurricane Harvey, she was also ridiculed, this time for wearing sky-high heels in a disaster zone. Not since Mary Todd Lincoln donned ostentatious $2,000 ball gowns during the Civil War had a first lady seemed more sartorially tone deaf. But #stiletto-gate, much like #jacket-gate, didn’t technically happen.
Yes, the Manolos were slung on Melania’s feet last year when she got on the plane in Maryland. But when she landed in the flooded area, she was in white sneakers.
This brings us to why this ridiculous jacket ruckus is so harmfully misplaced: it has overshadowed the real story, which is that Melania Trump wants to help the more than 2,000 kids separated from their families.
Helping is the opposite of not caring. What she was wearing on Thursday is beside the point — what she was doing in Texas is all that matters.
This should be the focus. We should applaud the first lady for sticking her neck out when just about every other craven grifter inside this bumbling administration is more inclined to enable the president’s worst impulses.
If you’re hoping for compassion from this White House, Melania Trump is your best bet. She might be your only bet. And if you believe a motley crew of bootlickers and hat thieves now surround her husband, I’m sorry but a novelty coat gets a mulligan.
To be outraged about a wardrobe malfunction— or perhaps a wardrobe failure to communicate — is to unwisely shove Melania away from where she wants to be, which is on the right side of history.
To attack Melania over a jacket is to run the risk of eventually getting stuck with zealots like Stephen Miller, Trump’s anti-immigration adviser who is probably now using those leaked tapes of sobbing refugee kids as romantic mood music.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Miller owns a jacket stamped with, “Go Back To Your Country, We Don’t Want U.”
The insiders who remain in closest orbit to this president are, by deed and nature, the opposite of Melania Trump. So to alienate her over a fashion faux pas is to amplify the paranoia inside a White House that dangerously claims the fake news media is the enemy of the people. It is to compel Melania to question her own guiding decency: I’m trying to do what’s best, and this is the way I’m treated?
While some of her lofty goals may seem absurdly comical when calibrated against her husband’s antics — Melania is anti-cyberbullying, while Donald is the world’s No. 1 cyberbully — there is no evidence to suggest her heart is not in the right place.
Whatever she decides to wear over that heart, however baffling, does not warrant condemnation. It is not the clothes that make this first lady.