Life

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

Ivanka Trump’s brand offers an idea for refreshments. Image by Screenshot/Twitter

By Phoebe Maltz Bovy May 29, 2017

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 bovy@forward.com. She is the author of “The Perils Of ‘Privilege’”, from St. Martin’s Press. Follow her on Twitter, @tweetertation

Phoebe Maltz Bovy is a former editor of the Sisterhood blog at the Forward. Her writing has appeared in several publications, including The New Republic and The Atlantic. Her book, “The Perils of ‘Privilege,’” was published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2017. She has a PhD in French and French Studies from New York University, and has read a lot of 19th century French Jewish newspapers for a 21st century American.

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