Photo : Chip Somodevilla ( Getty Images )

Melania Trump exists in what appears to be a loveless relationship with her husband.




And that’s it.

Aside from the mysterious illness she battled a month ago, the lovelessness of her marriage is the only thing about her that would suggest that she’s worthy of any sort of sympathy. And a loveless marriage ain’t even a thing that deserves it.


The bar, however, for what white women—particularly conventionally attractive white women—are able to squeeze and induce sympathy from is so low, you could bang your fucking shins on it.

You put a period instead of an exclamation point at the end of an email reply, and now HR has been called because she felt intimidated by that. Her grades weren’t high enough to get into the school of her choice, and now the Supreme Court is taking her case. She’s upset that saying racist things has made everyone believe she’s racist, and niggas take her to brunch just to show everyone she’s not that bad. She’s sad, for literally any reason, and the earth stops rotating just so the world can fetch a tissue.

Just a few months ago while I was traveling to Stanford, the flight I was on was over the weight limit and people needed to be pulled off before it took off. I was one of those people. There were maybe 20 of us total. I explained to the gate agents that I was traveling to give a talk that evening and a $1,000 travel voucher would do me no good. The agents seemed sympathetic to my plight and worked to get me on a series of flight that day that would get me to California, but I wasn’t getting back on that one.

The 20-something white woman behind me in line, who was in midwhimper before she got to the front, had a full-on temper tantrum once it was her turn to speak. I couldn’t really make out what she was saying, but she had a dog and a quilt and looked like Anna Faris.


She got back on that flight.

Anyway, that Melania Trump appears sometimes to be annoyed or sad when in public with the terrible man she’s married to has been enough to craft an entire fan fiction economy around her predicament. She’s a hostage. She’s only there for the money. Donald Trump running for president wasn’t part of their marriage bargain. She’s waiting for him to choke on a Big Mac. She’s a member of the KGB. She’s been dead and the Melania we see now is a clone.


Some of these might be true. But what’s definitely true—and what’s been definitely true since we’ve know who Melania Trump is—is that she’s as shameless and repugnant as her husband is. She’s a trash person who’s lucky enough to also be a white woman in possession of a face that can communicate melancholy, which apparently is a force so bright and white that it conceals her stench.