Also, what the hell is this?

[conuly]

Michelle Obama wasn't even able to wear shorts on vacation without a shitshow, and this is okay? WTF.

Comments

[jessie_c]

It's a distraction. Notice how nobody's talking about the children who are still being kept in ages, still being abused, and who will likely never be reunited with their parents?

[conuly]

I'm still talking about it!

I can talk about two things at once.

[jessie_c]

Apparently the major media in the US are not capable of this amazing feat of coordination.

[wpadmirer]

You know that woman doesn't own anything that is that cheap. That was a deliberate shot at inflaming the public - especially since she was going to visit the children who are incarcerated by ICE at the border.

Anyone who has any sympathy for her should let it go now.

[conuly]

Anyone who has any sympathy for her should let it go now.

I have a little sympathy for her if - as comments by Trump would suggest - she is abused. Even awful people don't deserve that.

But that doesn't justify her doing shitty things. And if it had been utterly unintentional then it's still shitty because she absolutely should've taken three seconds to think about the impression she was making.

[crystalpyramid]

Okay now I'm actually thinking about it and I'm confused. Like it's 80 in Philly, it's got to be hotter in Texas. Why was she wearing a jacket at all?

[landofnowhere]

She's boarding a plane. Maybe it's very air-conditioned?

[agoodwinsmith]

I keep waiting for the proof that it is a photoshop job. I can't believe that it is really something an adult woman would stoop to doing. I *can* believe that other people would photoshop a picture, though. Maybe people are trying not to be the sucker falling for the hoax.

I fear it might not be a hoax, in which case: I'm still just speechless with aghastness.

[redsixwing]

Snopes rates it true.

[silveradept]

That's certainly the prevailing attitude of the administration, so I wouldn't be surprised at all that it was exactly as intended.

[conuly]

I'd be surprised if it wasn't.

[randomdreams]

But she was a democrat. That's totally different. For some reason.

[conuly]

Also, racism.

[wendelah1]

It's not okay. It's thoughtless at best, cruel at worst. My husband thinks that it wasn't her idea--that Trump ordered her to wear it because she publicly criticized his immigration policy. It was probably Steve Miller's idea. Doesn't it feel like it was designed to make people angry and be a distraction?

[siderea]

No, no. It's much, much worse than cruel.

It was one of Mussolini's slogans.

[conuly]

I thought that was "Drain the swamp".

Okay, one time can be a coincidence, but twice starts to look like a pattern. Can I just jump ahead to the conclusion of "enemy action" without waiting for a third slogan to pop up?

[wendelah1]

Thank you. I don't know your source so I'll need to wait for further confirmation from sources I do know and trust.

[conuly]

They're discussing it over at We Hunted the Mammoth and somebody in the comments produced this link, which predates the jacket, citing that as a fascist quote: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/22/casapound-italy-mussolini-fascism-mainstream

(Their conclusion at WHTM, incidentally, is that given the style of that jacket in comparison to what she normally wears, and the fact that it was out of season, that there's a good chance she was basically strongarmed into wearing it. I don't know if I agree with that or not, though I do agree that, despicable messaging (even without potential dogwhistles!) aside, it does look like an odd choice of garment for Melania Trump.)

[agoodwinsmith]

I have tried to find a source for this - do you have one you can share?

[siderea]

That's a link. Did you click it? And through to the linked information?

[agoodwinsmith]

Thank you. Yes, I missed it, I'm sorry. It doesn't show up as a link in the colour scheme here.

That is fascinating, thank you.

I think it is a bit of a stretch - the original slogan is "I don't care" regarding the non-carer dying on a battlefield, and the Melania jacket doesn't seem to be about her indifference to her own death. It feels like we're trying to give a childish action more gravitas than it deserves. It definitely has echoes, though.

[agoodwinsmith]

Update - saw something else which detailed Melania's background and that she grew up in a city occupied by Fascist Italy, and she speaks Italian, so there is no way she wouldn't get the connection to the slogan. I am still beyond boggled that anyone would be so childish, but there you are, eh?

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

What that is, is another distraction. Seriously, what does it matter what Melania Trump wears? The jacket was a tacky choice, and I wouldn't be surprised if Trump did make her wear it, but so what? Did anyone imagine Melania Trump cares about anything but ensuring her own child's wealth and privilege? She'd probably dress like Serena Joy in The Handmaid's Tale if her husband told her to, and make it look good.

[conuly]

It's a tacky choice and apparently also a fascist slogan. I'm not distracted, I'm just pissed off. I can focus on multiple things at once.

[thewayne]

There's no better standard than a double standard. Can't have them black folk gettin' uppity! I remember when black people getting shot by police were becoming an epidemic that I heard of mothers telling their kids that every day they had to dress like they were going to church to try to preemptively defuse an chance of incidents that could get them in trouble with the police.

I liked Bill Maher's joke about her jacket: You must have mistaken me for the Slovenian catalog model who gives a shit.