How Ivanka and Eric Trump conquered the world and rescued Christmas – The Guardian

Ivanka Trump has ended 2019 in the most Ivanka way possible: conducting a pretend interview with a friendly journalist at a conference that she was not fit to attend.

Over the weekend, the first daughter rounded off a year of tirelessly promoting herself with an appearance at the Doha Forum, which is one of those Davos-like conferences where the rich and powerful get together to hobnob and release huge amounts of hot air into the atmosphere. All in the name of solving the worlds most complex problems, of course.

As usual, Ivanka was one of the least qualified people in the room but also one of the most shameless. While government officials such as Turkeys foreign minister and Rwandas president fielded hard-hitting questions from journalists, Ivanka was interviewed by Morgan Ortagus, a US state department spokeswoman and former Fox News contributor. In other words, Ivanka basically sat down for an interview with her own PR person.

As you can imagine, the questions were brutal. Ortagus delivered sycophantic prompts such as: You were able to put womens prosperity into the national security strategy. That was so important to me that you did that and Id love for you to explain that. Obligingly, Ivanka waxed lyrical about how wonderful she is, while Ortagus oohed and aahed.

Ivankas extraordinarily softball interview raised some eyebrows. Even Vladimir Putin doesnt get interviewed by [the Kremlin press secretary] Dmitri Peskov, complained one Russian journalist. Poor Ivanka was immediately dismissed as Nepotism Barbie by the Twitterati, which was rather below the belt; Barbies daddy never gave her a high-ranking job in the government.

But that is enough snark. Whatever you think of Ivanka, she has achieved an astonishing amount this year. As her father announced recently to the Economic Club of New York, she single-handedly created 14m jobs which is truly remarkable when you consider that the entire US economy has added only 6m jobs under Trump.

Of course, Ivanka has done more than anyone to empower women. In February, she launched the Womens Global Development and Prosperity initiative to help 50 million female entrepreneurs globally. This would be great, were it not for the fact that her daddys government has made enormous cuts to foreign aid and reinstated the global gag rule that means international NGOs are barred from US government health funding if they perform or promote abortions. As Oxfam has noted, Ivankas initiatives wont even come close to making up for the damage done by the Trump administration.

The inspiring thing about Ivanka is that reality never gets in her way. She is blessed with the opposite of imposter syndrome. She is a motivational quote in high heels there is nothing Ivanka thinks she cant do. To be fair, there is little she hasnt done. This year alone, she rubbed shoulders with world leaders at the G20; sashayed into North Korea with her papa and declared the experience surreal; patronised women on a grand tour of Africa; and bought the worlds whitest dog.

It is easy to laugh at her. But if 2019 has taught us anything, it is that the Trump family is having the last laugh. They have weaponised exhaustion. From day one of Donalds presidency, they have eschewed established norms and acted shamelessly. Meanwhile, the rest of us have grown too tired to remain outraged. We have become used to Ivanka placing herself on the world stage. But beware: the woman is a wolf in chic clothing.

Sticking with the Trumps, sad news from the muddy trenches of Manhattan, where I have spent the better part of a decade fighting the war on Christmas. It has been a bloody battle and there have been times when my comrades in the PC army have come tantalisingly close to victory. Alas, our enemy triumphed. We must finally admit defeat: the war on Christmas has been lost. The Trumps and their allies have won. And by God are they smug about it.

We now dont have the political correctness we used to, crowed the Fox News host Jeanine Pirro during a recent interview with Eric Trump (the blond one who looks perpetually confused) and his wife, Lara. People are actually saying: Merry Christmas.

Lara joyously concurred. You can say Merry Christmas again! she exclaimed. Isnt that so nice, Jeanine? Eric agreed that it was just so nice, Jeanine. Its incredible, he enthused, as best his seventh-grade vocabulary would allow. It is nice to say Merry Christmas again This is what the American dream is all about We can sit there with a Santa Claus and with beautiful trees and eat ice-cream. Activities that, of course, were outlawed under Obama.

If you werent a footsoldier in the war, you could be forgiven for not knowing the conflict even existed. Of all the stealth battles that have been fought, the war on Christmas was truly the stealthiest. No one but the devout viewers of Fox knew it was happening. Indeed, according to a study by Fairleigh Dickinson University, watching Fox increased the likelihood someone would believe in the festive conflict by between 5% and 10%. It is almost as if the whole thing was a delusion dreamed up by the right.

But worry not, my friends: all is not lost. The war may be over, but there are plenty more battles to fight. I dont know about you, but I am going to spend the non-denominational holidays recharging my environmentally friendly batteries. And then I am off to fight in the war against men.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

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How Ivanka and Eric Trump conquered the world and rescued Christmas - The Guardian