
With Oedipal drama never far from Americaâs political consciousness, it was only a matter of a time before Donald Trumpâs youngest son, Barron, was thrust under the spotlight. Would he, the nationâs pundits speculated last week, at the tender age of 18, assume his first political position: that of a Florida delegate to the upcoming Republican Party convention?
In the end, no less than his mother Melania was forced to step in, clarifying that young Barron âregretfully declines to participate due to prior commitmentsâ. Yet her assurances will have done little to dispel the notion that, as it starts to wane, the MAGA movement will be little more than a family affair.
Donald Trump Jr has, after all, been active politically since the 2016 election, spending time campaigning for several republican candidates during the 2018 midterms, and again taking an active role in the electoral campaign of 2020. His sister, Ivanka, meanwhile, was rumoured to be angling for Marco Rubio’s senatorial seat in Florida, before eventually denying such plans. Her husband, Jared Kushner, is arguably even more central: in the mythology around the Trump presidency â that of the hapless but well-intentioned monarch surrounded by devious, conniving viziers and ministers â Kushner figures prominently as one of the villains.
From the start, the extended Trump clan and their role in US politics has had something of a “dog catches car” quality to it, in at least two respects. First, many of the attempts to get the family involved have been either abortive â Ivanka’s senatorial trial balloon, Barron Trump’s potential role as a GOP conference delegate â or fairly ill-received in practice. Second, the way in which Trump has tried to make politics a “family business” increasingly gives the impression of a political movement that fundamentally doesn’t know where it is going, nor what it intends to do once it gets there.
One can here make a comparison with a figure like Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of Bill and Hillary. There was never really the sense that the various no-show, well-paid sinecures Chelsea was handed were part of some nascent movement to revive America, drain the swamp, or take back control: this was pure trading favours for access. A grift, in other words, but an honest grift: one that was never confused about what the point of it all was. The talk about nominating Barron Trump as a GOP delegate, however, came at a moment of profound confusion within both the US Right in general and the MAGA movement in particular. The American Right is increasingly losing its cohesion, and itâs starting to manifest in haphazard attempts to create a political family dynasty.
Just recently, the America First Policy Institute â a Trump-affiliated think tank â released a report detailing proposals for a more robust and solid foreign policy for Trump’s second term in office. The suggestions are revealing, because they are essentially far more belligerent on the question of Ukraine â including a desire to keep arming the country even though the US is facing its own huge financial woes and cannot adequately restock its own arms inventories â than MAGA voters themselves. Far from being radical or shocking, “America First” policy initiatives increasingly seem like the same old Washington consensus that Trump supposedly set out to destroy.
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