Ivanka Trump VS Ella Emhoff: The Battle of the “First” Daughters –

The relentlessly patriarchal cliché wants behind every powerful man to be a woman, but – fortunately – the world has taken brave steps forward. On the one hand the aggressive definition of the powerful is no longer exclusively about men, on the other hand women have shaken off the unfair distribution of the role of partner, wife or mistress – in any case a person who lives, breathes and acts as a pushover and always in the background.

For the second time in its history the United States has to choose between a man and a woman president. Except that with their vote they will not only decide to whom or whom they will entrust the management of their country for the next four years, but also to which family they will hand over the keys to their country’s first household – yes, the White House.

After all, recent history has proven that whole families are usually attached to the president’s chariot, and not by parasitizing or living by plants, but by assuming critical political posts. Take her for example Ivanka Trump. The one-time (and re-candidate) first daughter of the United States not only enjoyed the photogenic title she received here and there due to the election of Donald Trump to the highest office in 2016, but also the duties and privileges of being a confidential adviser to the country’s 45th president . That he also happened to be her father she simply passed over as an insignificant, inconsequential coincidence.

The 43-year-old Ivanka Trump was formally appointed as a presidential adviser on issues of equality and women’s empowerment. In fact, during the years of Trump’s administration, as it is commonly known, he loosed and bound. One only has to recall the times she stood by her father’s side, instead of Melania, at public gatherings of global influence, such as the G20 summits, or her presence at the US-North and South Korea tripartite meeting in June 2019 in Korean Peninsula Demilitarized Zone. The latter was, as the once most fanatical devotee of Donald Trump has described, a surreal experience.

“During the four years of his administration, Trump appointed Ivanka as his confidential adviser. The fact that she was his daughter passed over as an insignificant detail.”

Fortunately, Mrs. Trump did not have to sacrifice her personal life for her political career, since she worked alongside her husband in the West Wing of the White House. Jared Kushner, former broker, current investor – with business interests worth billions of dollars in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries – and publisher of The New York Observer newspaper and interim adviser to the Trump administration was her colleague for four years.

He was the one who undertook to handle – with characteristic failure – the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic but also the one who shouldered the reform of the prison system, for which let’s not forget that he entered and exited the White House with a platform of proposals and the secret friend of the Trump family , Kim Kardashian.

The girl who disappeared

The daughter of Donald Trump and her husband, with whom they have three children, 13, 11 and 8 years old, were flesh and blood during his first four years in the presidential office and also staunch supporters during his first and second presidential terms his campaign. Not even first wife Melania had expressed such extreme admiration for the greatness, intelligence and leadership skills of the 78-year-old former and wannabe president.

Some even went so far as to express the unshakable belief that Ivanka, as a natural continuation of her father – and of course with his blessings – would sooner or later claim an opportunity in the Oval Office. But since 2022, the daughter that Trump had with his first wife, the now deceased Ivana, is almost invisible.

Both Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, once flesh and blood of the Trump administration, are staying away from the 78-year-old Republican nominee’s third run

Officially, she has stated that she supports and still trusts her father, but has decided to focus her time and attention on raising her children and on her married life. And apparently nothing has made her reconsider since the fall of 2022, when Donald Trump announced that he would be a candidate for president for the third time.

43-year-old Ivanka Trump and 25-year-old Ella Emhoff look like the ultimate embodiment of the two diametrically different worlds that will face each other at the ballot box on November 5

Even at the Republican Party convention held a few days after the assassination attempt against Donald Trump, Ivanka, who in the two previous presidential campaigns with her Filipinos acted as her father’s front-runner, shone with her discretion. She appeared dressed in white, as if in a dress code with her younger half-sister Tiffany – Trump’s daughter from his second marriage to Marla Maples – and stood behind her father for the formal photos.

One could assume that Ivanka Trump has had enough of political intrigue and hollow worldliness and has decided to live a quiet life in retirement on the private island in Miami where she resides with Kushner and their three children. In fact, of course, in the three years since her less than heroic exit from the White House, the 43-year-old seems to be everywhere – from the recent blockbuster wedding of Indian billionaire heir Anand Ambani in Mumbai to the Acropolis of Athens, which visited family recently – except her father’s side.

Some argue that the glass between Donald Trump and the – according to him – most beloved of his five children has broken for good. Still others speculate that Ivanka is keeping a safe distance from her father in order to protect both him and her husband from suspicions of suspected financial dealings and corruption due to the latter’s investment activities.

Trump & Sons

Although some may think that no one is irreplaceable, the truth is that Ivanka Trump’s absence from the presidential race is not only noticeable, but by many it is even interpreted as suspicious. It is also true that her brothers Donald Jr. and Eric and the latter’s wife Lara who accompany the patriarch of the family in his third presidential campaign prove to be rather few to act as his ideal troupe.

Trump’s 40-year-old son Eric and his wife Lara try to “step into the shoes” of the missing Ivanka

However, 46-year-old Donald Jr. has already received praise from vice-presidential candidate Vance, who described him as the man with the greatest and most unwavering faith in Trump’s vision epitomized by the slogan “Make America Great Again,” while 40-year-old Eric everything that passes through the soles of his shoes to instill faith in his father’s vision – usually melting them by following him like a faithful dog on his tours across the American territory.

The alternate “second” daughter

It is in any case striking that the roles between the two candidate first daughters of the USA, i.e. Ivanka Trump and Kamala Harris’s stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff seem to have been reversed. While one is silent, the other expresses both with physical presence and through social networks her support for the woman who learned to be addressed by the affectionate nickname Momala. Emhoff, 25, is the daughter of the Democratic presidential nominee’s husband, who saw her popularity skyrocket in January 2021.

Kamala Harris’s stepdaughter looks like and epitomizes diversity

The presence of the then 21-year-old Parsons School of Design student at the Biden-Harris inauguration ceremony – and especially her much-sung Miu Miu coat – became the viral news that occupied the international media for months. The until then globally unknown stepdaughter of the American vice president hatched in an instant into the ultimate it girl. It is characteristic that within a week of the ceremony at the White House, her followers on Instagram increased sixfold, the modeling agency IMG, one of the largest and probably the most inclusive in the world, offered her a contract, and the Miu Miu brand saw searches for his famous overcoat to see a rise of 450%.

“Ella Emhoff’s rise has been meteoric since she appeared alongside her stepmother at Joe Biden’s January 2021 inauguration.”

Along came the stonewalling from both anonymous and named trolls, which became even more intense when Emhoff began sharing views that some found provocative. Like when she talked about her choice to keep her natural body hair, or when she expressed her support for the LGBTQ community – especially transgender people. No matter how you look at it, in 2021 she became famous enough to be on the MET Gala guest list – a worldly culmination, you might say.

For the presidential campaign of her stepmother, whom her father Doug met in 2013 on a blind date and they married a year later, Emhoff has been not only active but subtly choleric toward her political opponents. In the summer, for example, she questioned through an Instagram post how a woman can be considered childless when she has raised two children, like her and her brother, Cole, who incidentally works at Brad Pitt’s film production company.

“Ella Emhoff, unknown worldwide until 2021, is now walking the catwalks, is invited to the MET Gala and of course actively participates in the election race of Momala, known as Kamala Harris”.

There are only a few days left until the American presidential elections, the culmination, together with the European elections, of consecutive electoral contests during this year. As the gap between the two candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, is dangerously fragile, the fear that even in the final hours before the polls open an attempt will be made to influence the free will of the electorate through deepfakes hovers over Washington.

At the Democratic convention last August, Ella Emhoff fulfilled the duties of a social media correspondent with claims

Although her schedule as a candidate for first daughter of the USA is rather demanding, Emhoff, who is a naturalized permanent resident of Brooklyn (and it comes out in every inch of her appearance), manages to meet both her professional and worldly duties. Now, of course, in addition to walking the catwalks of fashion weeks as a diversity archetype or partying with her best friend Billie Eilish, she also manages her own brand of knitted creations that marry fashion with art – or so it is promoted – called Soft Hands. If she will enjoy the privilege of “dressing up” the White House in her hipster clothes, we will find out on November 5th.