What Do Trump and Clinton Share but Lack?

[TaiShang]

Trump’s soft-power card: “Goddess Ivanka”
By Curtis Stone (People's Daily Online) 16:46, April 21, 2017

In the U.S., Ivanka Trump has become a controversial because of concerns about possible conflicts of interest. But in China, Ivanka has become a celebrated figure for her beauty, her positive attitude and hard work, her devotion to her family, and her devotion to promoting China-U.S. friendship and cooperation. Ivanka is U.S. President Donald Trump’s soft-power card, and playing that card is winning some hearts and minds in China.

On Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, there is even an online fan club dedicated to “Goddess Ivanka.” The online fan club has close to 13 thousand followers. One post shows a photo of Ivanka sitting between her father and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the Oval Office Desk. In the comments section a Weibo user wrote, “Don’t become president, you’re a good princess.”

A video of Ivanka’s daughter Arabella singing Chinese songs on the Internet went viral in China, attracting millions of views. Ivanka and her daughter came to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., to attend a Spring Festival celebration. At the Mar-a-Lago summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Trump earlier this month, Ivanka’s daughter Arabella sang a traditional Chinese song, Mo Li Hua, and recited poetry for President Xi and his wife. It was another viral hit.

Just days ago, China’s Foreign Ministry weighed in on Ivanka’s effective charm offensive in response to a question about how China views her role in promoting relations between the two countries. “We think highly of all people…who devote themselves to promoting China-US friendship and cooperation, and we highly appreciate their efforts in this regard,” the spokesperson said.

On Weibo, The Global Times posted a man-on-the-street interview about Ivanka’s fashion line coming to China. “Here’s what Beijingers have to say about Ivanka wanting to come to China to sell her clothes,” the title reads. The video was filmed at the trendy Sanlitun Village, a major fashion hub in Beijing. One young woman said Ivanka has an excellent business mind, and some thought that the brand would be popular in Sanlitun. But one young man tied the success of the brand to her father. “It all depends on Donald Trump,” he said.

A screenshot of the Weibo account “Goddess Ivanka”

 

[shadows888]

Please note, "Goddess" don't have the same meaning in China than the west. "13 thousand followers" are really small considering China's massive internet users.

 

[TaiShang]

Please note, "Goddess" don't have the same meaning in China than the west. "13 thousand followers" are really small considering China's massive internet users.

I think the interest arises mostly from the royal aspect of Trump family, which is very interesting. In that sense, it is no different from the celebrity-like interest in UK royal family.

As you say, the number is way too small in China's scale.

The rise of a clan in the seat of democracy is really what interests me - and likely what interests other in China. How many family dynasties over the past two-three decades? And Trump may be the crown jewel of political dynasty making.


***

American Royals: Rise of the Trump Monarchy

Thanks to Donald Trump’s dynastic planning, the United States will finally beat the British at the royalty glitz game.

Stephan Richter, April 21, 2017

Takeaways

• Trump's goal is to ensure that his daughter Ivanka actually succeeds him in the White House.
  
• Most Americans are used to Ivanka by now – including, the conservative men for whom having a woman as President isn't easy to swallow.
  
• Political careers in the US reverberate a lot around a quasi-aristocratic inheritance principle.

Move over, William and Kate. The Trump family clan has a plan. Americans will no longer cede the fame, glory and global attention of the royal beat to the British.

Being beaten by the British on such productions as “royal weddings” and “royal baby births,” which are an interesting cross between Disney and Hollywood, has long been a matter of great shame for the United States.

Thanks be to Mr. Trump

Proud American nationalists should be grateful to the Trump family clan that it has a business plan to put Kate and William into their proper place.

The family is willing to tolerate the British version as a kind of European sidekick to the main American royal show – also perhaps as a substitute if the real American royals can’t make it on some occasion.

Just don’t mistake the outline of the Trumps’ plan for political trivia or society gossip. In all seriousness, there is a real plan behind it.

The rival claimants

In true Trumpian fashion, the main goal of this plan is domestic in nature — to slay the rival putative U.S. political dynasties: the Clintons, the Bushes and the Kennedys. But mainly the Clintons.

This will happen by focusing Trump’s presidency not, as most presidents do, so much on securing their own reelection. Despite the current low poll numbers, Donald Trump has big enough an ego that he pretty much considers this a game.

A truly ambitious person, his goal also is not just to secure the 2024 Republican nomination for his daughter Ivanka, but ensuring that she actually succeeds him in the White House.

Take that, Hillary!

That is the leitmotif which guides virtually all of the moves that are undertaken by the Trump White House already at this stage.

Just remember as well that Ivanka was pretty much The Donald’s regular deputy in “The Apprentice” reality TV show. So most Americans are already used to her – including, critically, all of those conservative American men for whom having a woman as President is a hard thing to swallow.

While Trump is indubitably fascinated by the royal succession aspect of it all, what he truly relishes is the prospect that Ivanca Trump will become the first woman president of the United States.

Jared, the Veep

And lest anybody think that that is the end of the family business aspect of the story, think again. Better realize already at this stage that Jared Kushner is already being established as a most suitable and skilled vice president of the United States, to assist his wife Ivanka.

Thus, reckon that 32 years after the first two-for-one deals was announced in American politics, when Bill Clinton offered the services of his wife Hillary for government service in the White House, there now is a new deal of just the same kind – all be it, and that’s very important, with reference to gender roles.

The Ivanka-Jared pincer

The power of pictures carries a lot of weight inside the American political psyche. And if you looked at the recent meeting between Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, you could see how the succession plan with the two young Trumps was already firmly in place.

Son-in-law Jared sat two seats down from the Donald, while Ivanka set next to Angela Merkel on the other side of the table. Call that a future-oriented Trumpian pincer movement on current world leaders.

Not only did Ivanka way outshine the portly Mrs. Merkel. Jared on Trump’s side also looked much more alert and engaged and less wooden than Mike Pence, the sitting vice president of the United States.

Back to the future

As improbable and cartoonishly silly as the Ivanka as Prez scenario may look to people living in other western countries, one cannot escape the notion that political careers in the United States reverberate a lot around a quasi-aristocratic inheritance principle.

There’s a constant flow of senators, members of the house, governors and the like who effectively inherit their parents’ or husbands’ seats up on their retirement and or death.

Evidently, for many political pros, politics is a family business in the United States. To be sure, some of that simply dates back to the country’s founding days.

But even that “familiar” tradition of the U.S. politics does not quite explain how a country that was founded as an antithesis to a royalist regime hundreds of years later is so deeply fascinated with creating its own sense of royalty.

Surrendering to succession

That strange feature is probably most easily explained by the standard psychological argument of compensation.

Other scholars, such as Eric Nelson, author of “The Royalist Revolution,” have made a more complex argument that the Constitutional framers built a system to give more power to a monarch-like figure than any parliamentary body, based on a then-hazy recollection of the English Civil War and colonial misrule.

Whatever the explanation, it is truly astonishing that in a country that prides itself so much of its diversity, dynamism and so on, but the political process is so needy or so unimaginative that presumed democrats – with a little d – so willingly succumb to the family succession story.

Still, isn’t it kind of agreed to see if the two Trumps will make it to the top? Here is a sobering thought that even ardent Democrats and admirers of Barack Obama must concede:

By the end of the elder Trump’s presidency, whether after four or eight years, both Ivanka and Jared will have considerably more real life business and high-stakes politics experience than the 47-year-old Barack Obama had when he transitioned from junior Senator for Illinois to the White House.

“Impossibility” is gone

Anybody who thinks the game delineated above is outlandish or at least improbable must reckon with this point: At this stage, it is already far less improbable than Donald Trump of 2015 and even early 2016 securing the Republican nomination for president, never mind getting elected to the White House.

Once a family clan is on the inside of the American political power track, in one way or another, it is bound to stay there.

And if anyone can bring a British-style royal dynasty to the United States, surely it will be the tabloid-veteran family with gilded, palatial estates all over the country.

 

[graphican]

She too is trump's daughter.

 

[Jlaw]

Why so excited? Just because trumps granddaughter can sing Chinese song doesn't mean anything.

 

[AndrewJin]

She too is trump's daughter.

LMAO

 

[TaiShang]

Why so excited? Just because trumps granddaughter can sing Chinese song doesn't mean anything.

The excitement is from the clan's amazing control of power. It is like a monarch with checks and balances but the entire system is corrupt so maneuverable.

Family involvement in state business always generates wonder. Also check Azerbaijan. Only less sophisticated.

 

[shadows888]

Why so excited? Just because trumps granddaughter can sing Chinese song doesn't mean anything.

no i think it's blown out of proportion. for someone like Ivanka status (being the daughter of the president that holds some power in shaping policy), 13 thousand followers is a pity. even mid level online or youtube stars have way way more.

 

[Kiss_of_the_Dragon]

Not because we like to suck up with celebrity but Ivanka seem to have a friendly attitude toward Chinese people, I only hope she can bring good relation between American and Chinese people.

 

[shadows888]

Not because we like to suck up with celebrity but Ivanka seem to have a friendly attitude toward Chinese people, I only hope she can bring good relation between American and Chinese people.

better than bannon and navarro who seems to have been pushed out in the trump admin by ivanka and kushner. told you guys blood is thicker than water lol, Trump will pick his kids everytime.

 

[Kiss_of_the_Dragon]

better than bannon and navarro who seems to have been pushed out in the trump admin by ivanka and kushner. told you guys blood is thicker than water lol, Trump will pick his kids everytime.

As far as China is concern, we don't really care who Trump will pick as long as they're friendly toward China, we will welcome them.

 

[TaiShang]

What Do Trump and Clinton Share but Lack?

CLASS! In that both belong to the Upper Class. And both only serve the interests of their class--whatever they may tell their "deplorable" voters. Yet neither is a Class Act like Vladimir Putin--the strong but compassionate, true Christian President of Russia.

Dr. William Wedin



Old friends

Trump and Clinton both belong to the Upper Class. They move in the same circles. Their daughters, Chelsea and Ivanka, are best friends.

So when The Donald invited the Clintons to his lavish wedding reception at his lavish Mar-a-Lago estate in 2005--this time with Melania as his bride--of course, ever social-climbing Hillary leaped at the chance and dragged Bill along.

Just look at Hillary's utterly enraptured smile as The Donald regales Bill with how he groped Melania the first time they met. Do you know how much a man must be worth for Hillary to smile at him like that?

I'm joking, of course. [He could be worth a million less; and she'd still smile like that.]

Honestly, though, this photo did shock me a little. For it made me realize--not for the first time, to be sure, but with singular intensity--that Clinton and Trump really DO belong to the same Club--the same Class. The Upper Class.

And one of the perks of being in that Class is that unless you're a Bernie Madoff and actually confess to a crime, you will never go to jail. Not if you're Donald Trump, you won't.

And not if you're Hillary Clinton. Nope!

Not even if you've committed the most fragrant of felonies.

And Trump himself has led huge rallies of "deplorables" against you, shouting:

"Lock 'er up! Lock 'er up!"

As soon as the election was over, Trump announced that haggard Hillary had "suffered enough." And that was that.

Come on. Trump wasn't going to lock up the mother of Ivanka's best friend. Not after the "poor woman" had spent $1.2 billion against Trump's measly $600 million to defeat him--and lost!

Losing money like that has gotta hurt!

Imagine if you lost money like that!

But these people are paupers compared to the Arab Royal Families who contribute to the Clinton Foundation and buy Trump out of bankruptcies to the tune of millions.

Just as these Royal Families who actually own their oil-rich emirates and kingdoms bought up George Bush Jr's failing oil businesses back in the 1980's so George could follow his father clear to the Presidency.

And what did these Royal Families want from Bill and Hillary Clinton, George Bush, the newly-rich Obama, and Donald Trump, in return?

Only war against Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and Iran. And the "cleansing" of all Christians and Shiite Muslims from these lands.

Trump may have raged against Muslims to those "deplorables" whom he and Hillary and their Upper Class so deplore.

But since his election, Trump has done exactly what these Arab Royal Families have wanted of him. The travel ban. The Yemeni raid. The Syria reversal. The Tomahawk missile attack.

And Trump has just begun.

***

And then there is Vladimir Putin. And here's my very favorite shot of him, talking to a little boy who's gotten so, so tired from standing at a long, long Russian Orthodox service that he's just... well... sat down... right there... while his mother in the pink sweater tries to ignore him.

So what does Vladimir Putin--that Monster of Evil--do? He kneels down and talks to this lonely little boy who so needs a father right now. And in that one single simple gesture of loving understanding--in my professional judgment--Putin gives the lie to all the ugly charges that have been hurled at him.

In kneeling down in tender compassion like that, Putin shows real class.

Dr. William Wedin is a licensed clinical psychologist and long-time human rights activist who lives and practices in New York City. If you have specific information to offer him on this topic, please write him at: drwilliamwedin@gmail.com