Timing is everything in politics, as French Queen Marie Antoinette learned two centuries ago, and Ivanka Trump was reminded of over the weekend.
“Let them eat cake!” mocked the tweets and Instagram comments on Trump’s accounts, after she posted pictures of herself and husband Jared Kushner dressed to the nines — she in a $5,000 silvery gown by Carolina Herrera — just as chaos and protests erupted at international airports over President Trump’s just-signed order barring refugees and travelers from some Muslim countries.
There was nothing unusual in Ivanka’s posts: She has regularly used her Instagram and Twitter accounts to show herself and her family in carefully staged, usually innocuous settings. She and Kushner have posed before in their finery before attending formal events, including the balls and dinner during her father’s inauguration.
But the timing of this picture lit a fuse on social media among people already infuriated over the president’s executive order that barred all refugees from entering the U.S. for 120 days, barred the admission of refugees from Syria indefinitely, and halted entry to the U.S. for three months to residents from seven predominantly Muslim countries. The president said the order was necessary to protect Americans from terrorists.
Over the weekend, confusion and consternation reigned at airports around the world and in the USA, protesters gathered by the hundreds and human-rights and immigration lawyers rushed to international terminals and to court to try to free scores of detained travelers.
Then the gleaming picture of Ivanka and Jared appeared early Sunday. It was not clear where they were or where they were going but the couple and their three children have recently moved into a mansion in Washington, D.C.
Kushner, a member of a billionaire New York real-estate family who is now a senior counselor to his father-in-law tasked with achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians, was largely ignored by the social media critics.
Instead, it was Ivanka, her father’s close but unofficial adviser, who took all the “tone deaf” accusations.
“@IvankaTrump’s tone deaf, heartless tweet as hundreds of thousands take to streets tonight to protect Muslim refugees from deportation,” posted as user called Kieran Suckling.
Ivanka was likened to the French queen who supposedly said, “Let them eat cake,” when told starving peasants had no bread, a possibly apocryphal remark that nevertheless helped lead the queen to the guillotine after the 1789 French Revolution.
“@IvankaTrump Well I’ll be damned. Marie Antoinette reincarnated. Little “Let-them-eat-cake-Ivanka,” was a typical tweet, this one from a user named Laurie Fendrich.
Even more pointed were the “Who wore it better?” comments from users who posted a picture of a little girl in a refugee camp wearing a metallic blanket around her shoulders.
“The dress on the right cost 5k; the one on the left almost her life. Who wore it better?” posted a user named Toni.
On the other hand, Ivanka’s Instagram account showed more than 234,000 “Likes” for the picture, plus more than 11,000 comments, not all of them critical. But some commenters tried to look at the big picture.
“Banning people from coming to America because of their heritage will go down in US history. Unfortunately, you are on the wrong side of history. Use your power for good, not evil,” wrote indythegreyt.
An emailed request for comment from Ivanka Trump was not returned.
