As her father attempts to win his way back to the White House in 2024, Ivanka Trump apparently has set her sights on a comeback of her own. And she has a secret weapon: Kim Kardashian.
Something of a social pariah among the coastal elites since her father’s presidency, Trump has been publicly distancing herself from politics since her father lost in 2020. Now she seems to be reentering mainstream pop culture in arguably the most prominent way you can: posing with Kardashian on social media.
Kardashian herself posted the photos on her Instagram Stories to celebrate Trump’s 42nd birthday. Apparently, the two are friends and have been for years.
“Happy birthday to the most thoughtful, sweetest soul,” Kardashian wrote in part.
Fine, I’ll say it: This feels strategic. It’s hard to remember now, but before her dad decided to give politics a try, Trump had a decent career as an influencer-slash-girl-boss.
Sure, it could be argued that she nepo-babied her way into a role at her family business and onto The Apprentice, but it seemed to be working for her. Remember her clothing line? Or Women Who Work? That could have been the next Lean In.
The point is, before 2016, Trump was gliding along doing decently for herself in both business and reputation. Then, well, we all know what happened.
Trump tried her hand at politics (it didn’t go well), and when her father got the boot, she slowly started receding from the arena. Last year she announced she wouldn’t be participating in his 2024 campaign, saying she was “choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family.”
Call me a cynic, but that statement never rang true to me. What seems more likely is Trump had realized that being associated with her father was a liability and pivoted. She probably misses the days when she could be shadowed at the Met Gala by People magazine and cosplay as a career woman without anyone calling her an insurrectionist. Her recent Instagram posts, which feature influencer-esque family shots and friends outings, seem to hearken back to her old persona.
So, now, the Kardashian of it all. We’re all smart enough to realize that Kardashian would not just be posting Trump without a strategy behind it (where was evidence of this friendship for the four years of the Trump presidency)?
The most likely explanation? Trump has asked her friend to help rehab her image, and Kardashian is willing to oblige. The fact that Trump is literally about to testify at her father’s civil fraud trial makes the timing even more interesting.
Kardashian did a soft launch last week, including a photo of Trump in a carousel of photos posted of her own 43rd birthday party in Los Angeles. But the separate birthday post for Trump feels like a line in the sand for Kardashian, a public embrace of her friend and a declaration that the season of cancellation for Trump is over.
You may be saying to yourself, “Who cares? This will never work. It’s Kim Kardashian.” And yes, I know, the public narrative is that we all dislike the Kardashians, blah blah blah. The reality, though, is that we don’t actually dislike the Kardashians. Maybe we aren’t all fans, but we’re obsessed with them.
Just look at how much pop culture oxygen is devoted to them, from magazines and tabloids to TikToks and Instagrams. We buy their products and we consume their lives. We got work done to look like them, and reversed it when they tried on new bodies and faces for size. If you’re trying to make a jump back into mainstream society, a Kardashian is potentially the best person to have in your corner.
So this all feels rather strategic. What Kardashian is doing by posting Trump is the best thing she could possibly do for her friend. She is normalizing her. She’s saying to the world that if she, as one of the most powerful people in society (sorry but it’s true!), can hang with Trump again, so can the rest of us.
And I’m thinking that it just might work.
Stephanie McNeal is a senior editor at Glamour and the author of Swipe Up for More! Inside the Unfiltered Lives of Influencers.
