Melania Trump is the perfect autocrats wife

Take it from Khrushchev’s granddaughter Nina Khrushcheva

https://qz.com/915988/take-it-from-khrushchevs-granddaughter-melania-trump-is-the-perfect-autocrats-wife/

There are many institutions of democracy that US president Donald Trump has attempted to undermine during his short time in office, including the judiciary and the independent press. He is governing by Twitter and by decree, like the budding autocrat he is.

As a former Soviet, I recognize these symbols of creeping authoritarianism. A first post-Soviet “tsar” of Russian democracy, Boris Yeltsin also chaotically ruled by decree, arguing that communists would undermine him and painting himself as the lone hero of the new Russia. Trump, who is eager to go it alone in his quest for the parochial and reactionary “America First,” fights not communism, but liberal democracy, with its foundations of shared responsibility.
Indeed, Trump’s insistence on making “ultimate decisions” all by himself unite him with autocratic leaders who value personal rulings over general laws. In fact, his wife Melania Trump’s striking invisibility at White House events further underscores similarities between the 20th-century Soviet Union and America of 2017. Last month, during Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to the United States, Mrs. Abe had to tour the US Capitol alone, while Melania’s absence marked a dramatic break in the established political protocol. And in the first three weeks after the inauguration, even Melania’s official Twitter account, the preferred information medium of this whole presidency, posted just one tweet announcing her as the First Lady.

On Sunday, “hosting” the annual Governors Ball, she appeared robotic, barely present at the event that she had allegedly planned. In a statement (not a personalized welcome) she declared that the ball was about unity and not politics, a plan that got quickly derailed by her husband’s promise to undo the Affordable Care Act. Remember, at his press-conference a few weeks ago, Trump told us that one of her causes is to advocate for women. Yet at the ball he only welcomed “Governors, their wives and daughters.” He does know that women can be, and are governors, in the United States, right? Mrs. Trump isn’t responsible for the president’s words, but she clearly wasn’t consulted, either.