Staff Reports
Yowza. Ivanka Trump was formerly touted by Team Trump as the potential future leader of a political dynasty. She had a crucial part in her father's administration as a major counsellor and, in some ways, as a calm and calming PR presence in a turbulent White House.
The former First Daughter has renounced her position in the succession by declining to take part in the Donald Trump Restoration effort in place of carrying out such efforts.
Even while it initially appeared to be rather gossipy, the prior story from The Post anticipated this development. Ivanka and Jared Kushner, a White House official adviser to Trump, were "cajoled," according to sources, to go on stage with him for last night's announcement. As it turned out, Ivanka didn't show up at all, and Jared was in the audience but not on stage.
Even a silent no-show would have at some point received some attention. The timing of Ivanka's decision to make a public comment in relation to her father's announcement of the start of his campaign says eloquently about the conflict within the Trump organisation about the new initiative. Ivanka's statement that she will only support her father "outside the political arena" is a mega-Trumpian anti-endorsement from the genuine inner circle: the Trump family and its heir apparent. Forget about the megadonors for a while.
That undoubtedly lessens the impact of Trump's statement, but it also harms him politically. Many voters, including some of Trump's earlier supporters, have grown weary of the drama surrounding Trump over the past few years. In a way that a thousand polls and/or articles in the mainstream media wouldn't, Ivanka's assertion supports that. Many people may begin to accept their own exhaustion as real if even Ivanka is sick of Trump's campaigning.
Ivanka was also a crucial political asset for Trump, seeking to soften the edges of his persona and attempting to win back the support of women, particularly younger women. Ivanka may not have been positioned for dynastic ascendancy, but she managed to stop or at least partially halt the migration of female votes that Trump could have otherwise lost.
Ivanka's departure might not bother some Trump fans too much. They saw her as more of a centrist and possibly even further away than that. (For that matter, non-Trump conservatives shared the same reluctance.) Nevertheless, Trump successfully exploited it to win over disgruntled centrists, blue-collar classic liberals, and other voters in the first campaign who viewed Ivanka as a sign of pragmatism. The political position can no longer be filled by a member of the family, and no one from outside the family would be close enough to have the necessary credibility.
If the dynastic ambitions ever existed at all, they are now extinct with Ivanka gone. Additionally, it gives the sense that Team Trump has already thrown a wheel just by starting the race, which is unlikely to spark much interest in it.
The preceding is a summary of an article that originally appeared on Hot Air.
