Melania Trump has announced that the upcoming audiobook version of her memoir will be narrated with an AI clone of her voice.
Posting on X, the First Lady spun this as a nod to modernity. “Let the future of publishing begin,” Mrs. Trump declared.
As is typical of social media in these divided times, many of the comment replies were vindictive, and largely fell along partisan lines.
This got me thinking about First Ladies, and my memories of them.
I was born during the final full year of the Lyndon Baines Johnson administration (1968). I was alive during all the years that Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford were in office, but I remember almost nothing about either president, or their wives.
Jimmy Carter is the first POTUS I remember from Election Day forward. I was in the third grade in November 1976, when Carter was elected.
Rosalynn Carter made less of an impression on me, though, than her daughter. Amy Carter was, and is, one year older than me.
Amy Carter was often promoted as a typical American kid, just like one of us. My teachers made her a topic of classroom discussions.
In those days, Amy Carter made occasional appearances with her father. Decades later, I met an adult about my age who met—or claimed to have met—the presidential daughter during a visit the Carters made to her Kentucky school.
The Reagan administration (1981-1989) spanned my formative years, ages 12 through 20. First Lady Nancy Reagan was very interested in American teens, and adamant that we should not use recreational drugs. This was the era of Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) and “Just say no” (to drugs).
What can I say about Barbara Bush, the First Lady of George H.W. Bush? The elder Bushes were members of the World War II generation, the generation of my grandparents. First Lady Barbara Bush reminded me of my grandmother. I had a favorable, but unremarkable impression of her.
First Lady Hillary Clinton famously billed herself as her husband’s co-president. “Two for the price of one!” was a phrase that the Clinton Administration actually used on occasion. In the still-conservative early and mid-1990s, Mrs. Clinton’s chief initiative, a national healthcare plan, gained little popular traction.
Always the bridesmaid, and never the bride (politically), Mrs. Clinton would herself run for the White House—twice. The first time (2008) she lost out to Barack Obama in the Democratic Party primaries. The second time (2016), as the Democratic nominee, she lost to Donald Trump in the Electoral College (though she took a greater percentage of the popular vote).
Laura Bush, the wife of President George W. Bush (2001 – 2009) did not shun the inevitable glare of the spotlight. Nor did she project any pretensions of being her husband’s co-president.
Laura Bush has sometimes been described as our most popular modern First Lady. It is difficult to argue with her numbers. A January 2006 USAToday/Gallup poll gave Laura Bush an approval rating of 82 percent. This came at a time when her husband’s approval was sagging, due to the quagmire of the war in Iraq, and looming economic turmoil.
Since 2008, the Democratic Party has given us two more First Ladies: Michelle Obama and Jill Biden. During their time in the White House, there seemed to be attempts on the left to transform both of these women into feminist icons. In the meantime, they became minor villainesses for the right.
And then there is First Lady Melania Trump. There is much about Mrs. Trump, her marriage, and her origins which are unusual.
First, Melania Trump is only our second foreign-born First Lady. The first foreign-born First Lady, Louisa Adams, was born in England in 1775, raised in France, and was the wife of our sixth president, John Quincy Adams.
Melania Trump, on the other hand, was born Melania Knavs in Yugoslavia in 1970. She had a modeling career in the 1980s and 1990s before she met Donald Trump in 1998. Melania Knauss, as she was then known, would become Donald Trump’s third wife.
There is a significant age gap between Melania and Donald Trump. Allow me to put it in personal terms. Melania is two years younger than me. (I was born in 1968.) Donald Trump was born the same year as both of my parents (1946).
Melania and Donald Trump do not seem to be close as a couple. Some would blame the age gap, but there are plenty of age-gap couples who are quite close. The problem, rather, is that there is something about their relationship which seems distant and transactional. A European fashion model wedding a twice-divorced American billionaire who was old enough to be her father. What could possibly go wrong with a union like that?
Which brings us to Melania Trump’s memoir. Would I like to read it? Sure. I suspect that the political chapters will be rather thin gruel, but I would definitely like to know more about her origin story.
I remember watching news stories about communist Yugoslavia during the 1980s. Neither I—nor anyone else—would have ever guessed that we’d someday have a First Lady from there. Politics aside, Melania Trump’s journey, from there to here, must be a remarkable one. I do plan to read her memoir.
(Or…maybe I’ll wait for the AI audiobook. As I’ve said before, my TBR list is very long, indeed.)
-ET
**View Melania Trump’s memoir on Amazon**
