Laurence Kesterson/AP
Less than a week before Melania Trump is set to release her memoir, the former first lady appeared to break ranks.
“Melania Trump passionately defends abortion rights in upcoming memoir,” read the headline. The Guardian, which had obtained an early copy, went on to include excerpts that see Melania declaring it an “imperative” to guarantee a woman’s autonomy. “Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body,” she reportedly writes. “I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.”
These views, of course, appear in direct opposition to the extreme anti-abortion record of her husband, Donald Trump, as he seeks to return to the White House. They arrive as the former president, who frequently boasted of his singular role in helping to overturn Roe v. Wade, contorts himself on an issue that has proven electorally diabolical for Republicans.
So in comes Melania—and with her, one of the most persistent storylines of the Trump era: Donald Trump may be an extremist but the women around him are supposedly a moderating force. His wife in particular, with her projected sense of mystery and speculation that she is the silent victim of an awful man, has served as a convenient vehicle for this narrative.
If people do still indeed invest in the fiction that Melania is a covert champion of progressive values, that she is the defiant, least-awful member of MAGA, then haven’t the last eight years shown how useless she is?
It was a strange thing to believe in the first place. But with nearly a decade of evidence proving otherwise, it strikes me as equal parts baffling and damning that the narrative survives. In fact, countless people have posted the Guardian‘s excerpt without context on social media, as if it’s a bombshell. (The Guardian posted another excerpt this morning in which Melania claims she tried to convince Trump to abandon his administration’s family separation policy, again without much skepticism.)
Then, a familiar news cycle: National news outlets repeated both headlines. Here’s CBS News, airing the conclusion that this is an unmistakably pro-choice message from the former first lady:
Now to be clear, it may very well be true that Melania harbors secret pro-choice views. But should we care? The former first lady—who eagerly pushed pernicious birther lies about Barack Obama—has always been a willing contributor to her husband’s rot, a longstanding complicity that most recently featured Melania giving air to conspiracy theories surrounding Trump’s shooting. Experts have warned such partisan exploitation could lead to retaliatory violence.
But if people do still indeed invest in the fiction that Melania is a covert champion of more progressive values, that she is somehow the defiant, least-awful member of the MAGA kingdom, then haven’t the last eight years shown how feckless she is? After all, Roe is gone; family separations occurred but “I really don’t care, do u?”; and a return to the White House is all but certain to be far worse.
Still, fiction or not, there are books to sell and cryptic videos to film. Meanwhile, the media seems perfectly fine, even happy, to keep laundering this grift. Just apparently not for $250,000.
