Outrage for thee, not for me.
In August of 2017, after Hurricane Harvey’s rampage in Louisiana and Texas, then-first lady Melania Trump went with her husband to inspect the damage in the stricken region. As she left the White House for the trip, she was wearing high heels.
By the time she’d reached Texas, of course, she’d changed into different footwear, as stilettos aren’t exactly made for surveying storm damage. Nevertheless, the media crucified her upon a cross of fashionable footwear.
Some examples:
The New York Times: “Melania Trump, Off to Texas, Finds Herself on Thin Heels.” Vanity Fair: “Who Wears Stilettos to a Hurricane? Melania Trump.”
“The President‘s clothes — khakis, windbreaker, and sturdy shoes — say, ‘I know what’s going on, at least,’” Vanity Fair’s Kenzie Bryant wrote.
“And then there’s Melania. Her aviator sunglasses and army green jacket say, ‘Business,’ and, ‘Let’s get down to business,’ and, ‘Hello, my name is Tom Cruise and I’m here to give you the business.’ The heels scream, ‘Who’s in for brunch?’”
Please God let some fashion brand be dumb enough to send me a press release taking credit for these shoes today https://t.co/wmNcpc7uUD
— Matthew Schneier (@MatthewSchneier) August 29, 2017
Vanity Fair would later amend this after the fact by putting this tweet from CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at the top of the piece:
Update for everyone who is obsessed with this: Melania Trump is now in tennis shoes. pic.twitter.com/6nwboiEZfk
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) August 29, 2017
However, the fact remains this was a supposed scandal for more than a news cycle or two — and not only that, but a supposed scandal fueled by what Melania’s husband, President Donald Trump, was fond of referring to as “fake news.” Even commentators who acknowledged Melania had changed out of the shoes before she arrived in Texas tried to paint her as out of touch for wearing the heels in the first place.
Meanwhile, in 2022, we have first lady Jill Biden — sorry, Dr. Jill Biden — visiting Florida with her husband to survey the damage left by Hurricane Ian. You might not have heard about her footwear choices as she left 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. on Wednesday — but because we’re here talking about something so fatuous, I’m pretty sure you can take a guess at what she was wearing:
Leaving for Florida. pic.twitter.com/9XHlqJsRkn
— Jeff Mason (@jeffmason1) October 5, 2022
Those, you will not be surprised to learn, are not galoshes. And yet, no one seems to be lashing out with outrage over this one. The frothing mainstream media coverage? Absent. The puff pieces about how Jill Biden’s heels made her look like she was about to invite the gals out for some mimosas and avocado toast on a Sunday morning? Not so much.
Conservative Twitterers, however, had longer memories:
Not for nothing but remember this one? https://t.co/nqrilBIQMx pic.twitter.com/avef0lWM8z
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) October 5, 2022
Just an observation pic.twitter.com/xUa8SQ2u26
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) October 5, 2022
That’s author and conservative media personality Stephen L. Miller noting the disparity in heel/disaster coverage between our last two first ladies in the legacy media despite nearly identical circumstances.
That story was *everywhere* pic.twitter.com/bnzBaAG8I6
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) October 5, 2022
He wasn’t alone:
Incredible. pic.twitter.com/DLCWrhn2hD
— Ben Goldey (@BenGoldey) October 5, 2022
Heels in a hurricane? Guess that only matters when it’s Melania right https://t.co/FCBxkF81zg
— White Light Bets (@WhiteLightBets) October 5, 2022
I’m told by reliable sources that Jill Biden is wearing kitten heels as she leaves for the trip to visit hurricane damage in Florida.
Not stilettos, as Melania Trump wore in 2017 that triggered the haters when she went to Texas to view damage from Hurricane Harvey pic.twitter.com/CcEm3fLsxQ
— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) October 5, 2022
Perhaps the performative outrage and soft misogyny visited upon Melania in 2017 takes a while to percolate and you’ll start seeing furrowed-brow think-pieces in the Times and Washington Post about Jill Biden in the next few days. (Jill Biden’s “kitten heels” are, after all, just short stilettos.)
Holdeth not thy breath.
Do you miss having Melania Trump as first lady of the United States?
Instead, the lack of attention paid to this ought to underline what Basil Fawlty would have termed “the bleeding obvious”: Heel-gate, like so many other pseudo-scandals during the Trump administration, had nothing to do with an actual offense or faux pas, but instead with the pre-determination that there needed to be a Trump-related outrage involved with every major news story.
There wasn’t any outrage to be found. There wasn’t a story, period. And five years later, the mainstream media has confirmed this by not covering Jill Biden doing the same thing.
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