The word “radical” has popped up repeatedly in the New York Times’ op-ed section lately: Donald Trump’s “radical honesty,” of someone who farts his thoughts, and Melania Trump’s “quiet radicalism” of someone who hates her shitty president husband. By the Times’ metric, “radicalism” could apply to taking a dump on the hood of a car, upending notions of what’s acceptable to do in public; or, nuking half the planet to change it up. It’s a radical twist in the term’s implication of mindfulness, as it appears in Merriam-Webster’s list of synonyms for the noun form [emphasis mine]:
broad-minded, nonconventional, nonorthodox, nontraditional, open-minded, progressive, liberal, unconventional, unorthodox
And now Maureen Dowd is here to present to you Melania Trump: sleeper agent provoked and ready to strike, bitches. In her latest piece titled “Trump Hits Alps, but Melania Is Frosty in Florida,” Dowd extrapolates political masterminding from a woman who reportedly wanted none of this. It begins:
The first lady will never be as brilliant at trolling as her husband. He is an idiot-savant who plays in the roiling ocean of Twitter as naturally as a blubbery-necked sea lion.
Only Donald Trump, a Rat Pack relic who spurred the reckoning with his transgressions toward women, could send out a tweet taking credit for the women’s march.
But the Slovenian Sphinx has her moments.
Murderous. Feline. Sexy feline. A riddle. Eastern; undercover? Movie title. Yes. This cat has claws. Rawr.
It started when she seemed to sartorially upbraid Trump for his Billy Bush vulgarities by wearing a pussy-bow blouse to the St. Louis debate.
...a Gucci blouse which happened to have the word “pussy” in the product description; pussy; that’s what Trump said!
Then, in a master stroke, she chose a first-lady project that could only be interpreted as a wicked rip on her husband: fighting vicious cyberbullies.
...or sexists, racists, adulterers, assholes, tax evaders, men who cheat at golf, men who barge in on dressing rooms, men who dump on moms, men who dump on the disabled, men who sexualize their daughters, men who endorse child molesters, etc...
And who can forget the crisp hand swat in Israel...
We know, she hates him...
...or her wish to spend Christmas on “a deserted island”?
“A deserted island, a tropical island, with my family.”
...Melania made a solo visit to the Holocaust Museum here for Holocaust Remembrance Day. This looked like a subtle reproach to Trump for his unspeakable defense of the “very fine people” among the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Va., and an allusion to the president’s statement last year on remembrance day, which somehow neglected to remember Jews or anti-Semitism.
Maybe she just did the appearance?
Suddenly, as Stormy Daniels began her media tour on “Inside Edition” and booked an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel,” Melania was making a stealthy landing in Florida on an Air Force plane.
She flew to Florida.
Last weekend, on the anniversary of the inauguration, Melania Instagrammed a throwback picture of herself in her powder-blue Jackie suit, not with her husband but with a hunky Marine escort. She wore a delighted ear-to-ear smile, the kind she never seems to flash around the Donald.
This is true; any scenario with Donald Trump is completely fucking miserable.
Related reading: Cecile Richards, twelve-year Planned Parenthood leader pure of heart? Or duplicitous political jockey?
DISCUSSION
Many of these examples are not shading her husband, but rather being sent to somehow mollify the damage he has done. Notably, the Holocaust Museum and the issue of cyberbullying.