In the wake of the Trump administration’s diplomatic blundering through the G20 summit this year, it wasn’t just the President’s ill-timed comments or brusque nature that drew criticism — it was also partially who accompanied him on the trip. And I legitimately can’t believe this actually needs saying, but perhaps the only appropriate people to bring with you on a trip of such importance are diplomats and career ones at that.
But Donald Trump is trying his very hardest to upend the government entirely and has steadfastly refused to properly staff the State Department. The reasons for it are myriad, but primarily it’s because (a) the State Department is the one agency of the US government that can and does consistently undermine his ham-handed attempts to play bad cop, bad cop and (b) that he truly believes he knows best who would fit the roles that need filling, but knows that the people he wants are not suited for the job — and often could either not get a security clearance in a million years, or ever be confirmed (in cases where it’s necessary) by Congress.
Distressingly, however, it turns out that the person he feels is most suited for a number of unfilled roles in the federal government is his daughter Ivanka.
That was on full display at the G20 over the weekend, as she took after he father in any number of cringe-inducing circumstances, from being obviously and painfully ignored by world leaders she was attempting to ingratiate herself with to sitting at the same table as people who were actually elected by their respective countries to be there in representation — insulting both the rest of the world’s diplomats and the very idea that government is intended to be representative of what the public wants.
Some countries have been more open about it than others. While certain world leaders are gracious — think Queen Elizabeth or Justin Trudeau or even Leo Varadkar — they can never fully hide their discomfiture.
Others have always been blunt.
Back at the beginning of the administration, in fact, when Trump announced in August of 2017 that Ivanka would be leading the US delegation at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit near the end of that year, an unnamed diplomat from India spoke on the record to the Hindustan Times, telling editor-in-chief Bobby Ghosh just exactly the way India’s government views the First Daughter:
We regard Ivanka Trump the way we do half-wit Saudi princes. It’s in our national interest to flatter them. Yes, it is a shame that the US should be compared to a kingdom. But that is America’s shame, not [Indian Prime Minister Narendra] Modi’s, or India’s.”
That anonymous hero may have unwittingly summed up the rest of the world’s take on the Trump effort to turn Ivanka into a global power player.
Featured image via screen capture
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