Marginalizing Melania

By Michelle Malkin Need more evidence that there are two Americas? Here: Left-wing hatred of Melania Trump is inversely proportional to flyover admiration for the first lady. In just the last month late-night clown Jimmy Kimmel mocked Trumps Slovenian accent CNN contributor April Ryan attacked her as not culturally American former Hillary Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines derided her genteel presence at former first lady Barbara Bushs funeral and horror writer Stephen King snickered at her hospitalization this week for kidney surgery. Yet while partisans in the political press and entertainment media work hard to stoke division against and resentment of the Trump administration Melania is now among the fastest-growing baby names in the nation according to recently released Social Security data. And a new poll by anti-Trump CNN released on Monday reported a 10 percent jump in the first ladys favorability ratings -- from 47 percent in January to 57 percent last week. Thats nearly 6 in 10 Americans with a positive view of FLOTUS. Uh-oh! Imagine how much higher those impressive numbers would be if the same celeb tabloid reporters and TV hosts who slavered over the Obamas in Us magazine and on The View afforded Melania Trump the same courtesies. Imagine if the same couture divas who organized Runway to Win Obama campaign fundraisers and published breathless weekly reports on Michelle Obamas Best Looks Ever harnessed their influence to promote Trumps style and fashion sense. Despite Trumps successful career as an internationally photographed model featured in Harpers Bazaar GQ Vanity Fair and Vogue lib-dominated fashion and celebrity magazines have shunned her. Pop culture editors and producers -- who turned Barack and Michelle Obama into the Beltway Brangelina promoting their election campaign re-election campaign books and every last pet project -- have ghosted her. Why? Fear. Melania Trump is not just strikingly beautiful. She is worldly well-traveled and well-read. She speaks English French German Italian and Serbian in addition to her native Slovenian -- more languages than any other woman who has served as Americas first lady. Her devotion to son Barron is exemplary. Her aversion to limelight and lack of political ambition are refreshing. So is her ability to refrain from public grievance-mongering over sacrifices and trade-offs made between work and home life (looking at you Hill and Chelle O). The hostile White House press corps blames Trumps own reticence for the publicity vacuum around her. But I believe theres something deeper at work: More exposure to this interesting and remarkable woman would mean more familiarity with her. More familiarity with her might mean more popularity. And God forbid there be more Republican women in the public eye who can compete with -- and win against -- the usual parade of militant kvetchers and moaners who pass themselves off as feminist role models. Doubling down both Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama have assailed all women who didnt vote for their political agendas as brainwashed by their husbands or selfishly unenlightened. In light of this last election Im concerned about us as women and what we think about ourselves and about each other Obama complained at the United State of Women summit in California last week. What is going on in our heads where we let that happen. Its called choice. Its called rejecting the tired old ideas that some women are more equal than others or that one party has a gender-based monopoly over the other. Smug Democratic divas who unleash their contempt for independent-minded women instead of working to win them over have learned nothing from the 2016 election. So Trump like so many prominent GOP women before her will continue to be snubbed humiliated and demonized by narrative control freaks because women on the right threaten the cultural hegemony of the left. Black or white rich or poor centrist or far right native-born or naturalized Republican mothers wives and daughters must be otherized and forced to stay in media-manufactured lanes. When leftists cant win on their ideas they resort to marginalizing the messengers of ideology they abhor -- and their mates. Its not an attractive look.