Ivanka’s Memorial Day Pitch: Let Them Eat Champagne Popsicles

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Ivanka Trump — technically, Ivanka Trump the brand — has entered into Marie Antoinette territory yet again. A tweet from the Ivanka Trump HQ account reads “Make champagne popsicles this #MemorialDay.” The tweet leads to an Ivanka lifestyle page post, which links to a Good Housekeeping post which posits Champagne popsicles as a concept, which, in turn, leads to a different Good Housekeeping post with the actual recipes, none of which include Champagne. (Other Ivanka-brand Memorial Day tips include such ideas as having a picnic, listening to music and packing a duffel bag.)
But it’s impressive, I suppose, how much is packed into that tweet. There’s the advice to freeze Champagne, advice that presumes both that you have Champagne lying around and that you’re so blasé about the fact that you’re prepared to turn it into popsicles. Then there’s the hashtag-Memorial-Day part, which — while normal enough for a brand promoting holiday content — reads as maaaaybe a bit disrespectful when coming from (or appearing to come from; the eternal brand-Ivanka blurriness) someone high up in the government, whose immediate response to a day commemorating lives lost by American armed forces wouldn’t be “champagne popsicles.”
Phoebe Maltz Bovy edits the Sisterhood, and can be reached at [email protected]. She is the author of “The Perils Of ‘Privilege’”, from St. Martin’s Press. Follow her on Twitter, @tweetertation
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