Most of us have heard the accusations that President-Elect Donald Trump's wife, Melanie Trump, repeated segments of one of Michelle Obama's speeches nearly verbatim. This got me thinking: what does it take to be a first lady?
The first lady has no official responsibilities but usually is still an important figure in the presidency and American society. For example, Woodrow Wilson's first lady, Edith Wilson, is well known to have been filtering the information that her husband saw, giving her a great amount of power. When Wilson suffered a stroke in the middle of his term, Edith kept it secret and essentially took control over the presidency.
Recent first ladies like Hilary Clinton and Michelle Obama have also been noteworthy. Hillary Clinton was already in political science and as such had a large amount of power. She participated in many democratic events and later even ran for president. Michelle Obama is a lawyer and a woman rights supporter and has done a large amount of work in those areas during her husband's terms.
This brings us back to Melanie Trump, who works as a model and does not have a college degree. Now, I am not saying that this means she will be bad at her social duties, but it seems as though she doesn't quite fit in. Despite being the first lady not being a hugely important job, I am curious (and slightly worried) to see how the next one will perform.
The first lady has no official responsibilities but usually is still an important figure in the presidency and American society. For example, Woodrow Wilson's first lady, Edith Wilson, is well known to have been filtering the information that her husband saw, giving her a great amount of power. When Wilson suffered a stroke in the middle of his term, Edith kept it secret and essentially took control over the presidency.
Recent first ladies like Hilary Clinton and Michelle Obama have also been noteworthy. Hillary Clinton was already in political science and as such had a large amount of power. She participated in many democratic events and later even ran for president. Michelle Obama is a lawyer and a woman rights supporter and has done a large amount of work in those areas during her husband's terms.
This brings us back to Melanie Trump, who works as a model and does not have a college degree. Now, I am not saying that this means she will be bad at her social duties, but it seems as though she doesn't quite fit in. Despite being the first lady not being a hugely important job, I am curious (and slightly worried) to see how the next one will perform.
As with how other first ladies had influence over the presidents, Melanie will also have large influence over Trump. Will she be a positive or negative one?
ReplyDeleteI really liked these points that you brought up! I think that the "role" of a first lady is more of being a public figure and having a good image among the public. Hopefully Melanie will be able to maintain a positive "image" although with the speech, she hasn't got off to the best of starts.
ReplyDeleteI also think that the first lady deals with smaller issues such as how Michelle Obama worked on getting kids to be healthier. I think Melanie will take up here own agenda such as how she stated that she wants to reduce bullying.
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