Quote:
Originally Posted by In2itive_1
But see, tRump did not want their lives to actually be experienced at the WH. You are trying to normalize things expected by typical families. He doesn't even like it there himself and everything is dictated by HIM, being controlling and self-serving. He likely didn't want to keep anything left by the Obamas and is also not the type who would relate to the experience of having pets. He is an empty shell of a person.
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That's true.
Throughout the campaign, Trump firmly believed he could remain in his old life in NYC, only needing to fly to Washington for a few days a week as necessary. As a total novice, of course he had no idea of what the job he was seeking really entailed, so his ignorance allowed him to think that his life wouldn't completely upend.
I remember how shocked both Trump and his wife were when they visited the White House and Congress for the first time. Melania was obviously terrified, as she clung to he husband with desperation, and Trump was pale. The Senators who surrounded him were at ease, perfectly comfortable in their familiar stomping grounds, but the Trumps looked like a couple of visitors from some small foreign country more that the President-elect and his wife.
Right then, I saw she didn't want any part of this business and this life. Her look reminded me of those pictures of refugees after being fished out of the Mediterranean. A lot of the other actions during the transition showed the same things- both as a couple in constant surprise at what their lives were going to be, what their responsibilities entailed, and their discomfort in being surrounded by so many strangers they were going to be intimately connected to so quickly.
Both were familiar with some things, like the need for bodyguards, chauffeurs, a lot of service staff and the like. That was a part of their lives in NYC. But more things were strange, new, and alien to them, especially Melania.
Trump faced it all with his bravado shield, but Melania had no bravado.
A politician's wife with a lot of experience in the life has a hard adjustment into the role of First Lady, especially if they are women who don't want to be in the spotlight; Pat Nixon, Rosalynn Carter, Barbara Bush, and many others may have been by their husband's side throughout the long journey to the White House, but once there, they stayed away from the spotlight, dutifully doing their jobs as First Ladies, not calling attention to themselves.
But all of them had some understanding of what they were getting into long before their husbands ever decided to run. For everyone but the Trumps, the White House was only the highest step on the ladder they had been climbing for most of their lives as a couple.
Professional politicians and their wives grow accustomed, once they become a Governor, a Senator, or reach any of the highest levels of the job, to living in spaces that don't belong to them. Their real home is always somewhere else. Their current residence is only temporary.
They all adjust to it. The wives remind me of military wives- they all learn how to pack up their families fast, travel light, and bring a few things with them that make them all the most comfortable as a family as soon as that stuff is unpacked. The women, if they have kids still in school, already know how to get them settled in, and how to help the kids adjust to new surroundings.
Donald Trump must have been hugely distressed with the realization that the White House wasn't ever going to be his home. He's worked from his home for most of his life, and he has always owned his home. Suddenly, he was in a house that's a national institution where there is nothing permanent in it except for some of the staff. Everyone else is temporary.
Maybe hanging the gold curtains in the Oval Office sufficed for his working day, but I'm sure Trump feels very alone, isolated, and uncomfortable in the Presidential living quarters. He has spent his entire life in NYC, looking down from above in luxurious apartments onto the crowded streets below.
Melania is even more uncomfortable. NYC is really all she knows in her American life. She adapted to her new life, but most of our nation remains as strange and unknown to her as a life in New Zealand would be for her.
I think Trump's increasing instability is a response to these shocks. Melania had the option of refusal, and since she hasn't lived in America all her life, she doesn't care about any of the traditions or the expectations that being a First Lady bring. So she just exercised her option, and refused to move in after making a few vague promises to arrive someday soon.
They had things as a couple all worked out between them in their old lives, so each was psychologically comfortable in NYC. Melania hates D.C. and everything in it. She won't go through the motions, because she doesn't even know what the expected motions are for her there. But she does in NYC.
Trump is stuck in a house he will never own, surrounded by people who haven't been by his side all is life, and his favorite daughter and son-in-law aren't there at his beck and call anymore. They're doing their best, but they have their own family, and they're not living with Dad anymore. Neither are his other sons and daughters.
And his wife said "Hell, no, I won't go!" in Slovenian. Then she said "And you can't make me!"
He must be the loneliest guy in the city. That would be sad if he was a common man, with a common job. But I think the situation poses a danger to this nation. The guy has always used anger to have his way with everyone, and we are now seeing an isolated, angry, unstable man who has a lot of ability to do tremendous damage in many ways.
Common men who vent their anger may do so by breaking some furniture, yelling irresponsibly at underlings, fighting with the old lady and the kids, or retreating to the man cave to get drunk or sulk. None of it affects anyone outside a common man's small circle very much.
But they aren't the President of the United States. That guy can vent to the wrong person at the wrong time and blow up much of the planet before the sun comes up.
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