This year, 2020, will go down as one of the worst single years since either one in the 60s or the early 40s and that’s no small matter. We always wondered, “How bad would it be if Trump faced a real crisis?” and now we have our answer. It’s really bad and Donald Trump did next to nothing. Had Trump made masks cool for his cult back in June and in his opinion “mandatory” and sold MAGA masks everywhere, maybe 100,000 people would still be alive. We will never know. The very fact that the virus shut the world down even without the sickness and death should be mentioned. It was the worst year for most generations.

So we feel the need to note little victories, no matter how unimportant to the world at large. Obviously, we found one that this site covered extensively, in part because we firmly believed that the media gave Melania a pass they’d never have given Michelle or Laura. Look at how they treated Hillary back then. Melania did plenty to earn a great deal of probing questions into her role and underlying beliefs. From the moment she plagiarized Michelle’s speech to the jacket, the pith helmet, she managed to ride it all by blaming the media for everything.

The media graded everything on what we’ve called the “Melania curve.” Melania is an immigrant that inexplicably – twenty years later – still speaks halting English, her immigration background was never fully examined, she wasn’t a Harvard law grad like Michelle or a librarian like Laura, she was a model and softcore porn “model.”

So Melania got a pass. But not with us. She is a fifty year old adult who can function and do things like an adult. Her cause – the Be Best – talking about vicious texts and social media with kids, cyberbullying, it was a fantastic idea and perfectly timed … except she didn’t seem to do all that much and she never once said “And my husband needs to tone it down, too” as mad as it might have made Donald, she not only had the right, she had the duty if she wanted any credibility.

Then came 2020. Stephanie Winston-Wolkoff’s tapes constituted a defense to an accusation that she committed a crime. It was entirely fair to both tape Melania, given the accusations made with more to come and release those the tapes. The tapes revealed the Melania inside the woman blaming the media for everything and holding herself out as the essence of elegance, grace, thoughtfulness, and big-hearted. The MAGAs looked at her as the new Jackie Kennedy. The tapes shattered any pretense that she had a care in the world beyond herself.

They say I’m complicit, I’m the same like him, I support him, I don’t say enough, I don’t do enough where I am. I’m working like a . . .  ass, my ass off on the Christmas stuff. Who gives a fck about Christmas stuff and decoration, but I need to do it, right?

Well.

Given the fact that the country provides her with literally every whim, jet, protection, etc. it seems like it’s not a lot to ask one to “give a fck,” right? And if you’re not going to “give a fck,” then it should be because you do actually give a fck about other important things like the real “Be Best,” too busy helping something else, correct? This is adulthood, not teen self-absorption. Except that’s exactly what it was and now the world knows what she cares about. Melania and Melania’s needs and whims.

For the love of god, even we think it would be really cool – wonderful – to have a virtually unlimited budget, specialists to do the actual work, in an already beautiful building, to have the opportunity to decorate it with our tastes with the help from an actual decorator! We aren’t even into that at all, yet that sounds wonderful. The problem for Melania was it wasn’t about Melania because she’d rather be doing something for Melania. She didn’t give a fck.

And with her voice on tape, hearing her anger, hearing the self-absorption, combined with the book that came out, it utterly shattered the veneer of any sort of thoughtfulness, gratitude, sense of responsibility, or an obligation to give back, just a little. It is gone because she is Melania Trump, a full Trump, who cares only about Melania Trump. That is just the way it is outside the Melania curve.

One small thing, 2020.

****

Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak