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Conservative Site is Upset that People are Loving Jill Biden’s Scrunchie but Ignored Melania’s Designer Duds

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Last week First Lady Jill Biden was preparing for Valentine’s Day by visiting a Black-owned baker, The Sweet Lobby, to “pick up some Valentine’s treats for the weekend.” She dressed simply, but elegantly, wearing a pink coat, floral earrings, a black mask, and carrying a bag of baked goodies, and her hair was pulled back in a scrunchie.

It was the scrunchie that lit up the internet.

But one conservative newspaper is holding a pity party for Melania Trump, accusing the media of gushing over Biden’s aforementioned scrunchie “after four years of harsh Melania Trump coverage.”

“Biden’s coverage stands in stark contrast to that of Trump, who was often mocked by media outlets during her time in the White House for a variety of alleged infractions, including her Christmas decorations, her approval rating, her push to combat childhood bullying, and her fashion choices,” The Washington Examiner notes.

But what the Examiner doesn’t report is that there’s a good reason for all of this. Melania has never in any way seemed warm, or kind. Wearing a coat emblazoned with “I Don’t Really Care, Do U?” while visiting children trapped in a detention center and separated from their parents, complaining about Christmas, and destroying a beloved Rose Garden doesn’t exactly give people the warm fuzzies.

Trump is a person who quite obviously needs a lot of time by herself, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but when you’re First Lady, where you’re continually in the public eye, that doesn’t play well.

Jill Biden projects kindness and warmth. Melania doesn’t know how to do that. I don’t think that’s her fault; I just think that’s the way she is. But her husband did a tremendous amount of damage, and it’s nice to see a First Lady doing things most of us do when we have the chance.

The Washington Post notes that this simple gesture signifies a “return to normalcy,” and away from former First Lady Melania Trump, who kept the world at arm’s length.

“Leave it to a scrunchie to capture the zeitgeist of President Biden’s promise to ‘return to normalcy,'” The Post reported, “a stark departure from the ‘I don’t really care message sent by Trump. After four choreographed and highly manicured years, Jill Biden’s laissez-faire approach to her public image and her affectionate relationship with her husband may foreshadow a different approach to the traditionally staid and formal office of the First Lady.”

In an interview with the Post, Kate Anderson Brower, author of several books on White House traditions, noted change is in the air.

“Dr. Biden has already been out and about in Washington more publicly than her predecessor was in four years,” Brower said. “There’s a stark difference between [Donald] Trump and [Joe] Biden, the presidents, and an equally stark difference between their wives. Biden has decades of experience being herself in public and she’s obviously much more comfortable holding her husband’s hand and being a demonstrably loving mother and grandmother when the world is watching.”

Noted Brower:

“I think we need that right now.”

Folks on Twitter seem to agree. Biden’s tweet has received more than 166,000 “likes” and 9,702 retweets.

Here’s a sampling:

Megan Hamilton
meet the author

Megan has lived in California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida and she currently lives in Central America. Living in these places has informed her writing on politics, science, and history. She is currently owned by 15 cats and 3 dogs and regularly owns Trump supporters when she has the opportunity. She can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/GaiaLibra and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/politicalsaurus

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