Where’s the “T,” Tiffany?

Late-October note to readers:  If you’re reading this and you haven’t voted yet, please stop reading and get to a polling place. And vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. I don’t have time to argue with you about this. Go do it. Now.

If you aren’t familiar with Tiffany Trump, you’re not alone. She is by far the least notable of the vile Trump spawn. She looks and sounds like Hannah Montana crossed with a younger, less interesting Jennifer Coolidge. 

To put her in a clearer context:

If Tiffany Trump were in the Brady Bunch, she’d be Jan.
If Tiffany Trump were in N’Sync, she’d be Joey Fatone.
If Tiffany Trump were in Destiny’s Child, she’d be Michelle.

Tiffany is Trump’s only daughter by his second wife (and Dancing with the Stars alum), Marla Maples. In many ways, she is the middlest of middle children, the Jan-est of the Jans. But lately, Tiffany Trump has been on the campaign trail for her father. Her assignment: Go out and get the gay vote for Daddy! Tiffany, who has probably seen a drag show once and thinks brunch is better with mimosas, was up to the task.

The Trump campaign held a Trump Pride event this week in Tampa, Florida. The event was co-headlined by Tiffany and gay Trump shill Richard Grenell (who I wrote about a few weeks ago). The event was attended by tens of people. It exceeded the campaign’s expectations. 

When it was Tiffany’s turn to help GOTQV, she danced her way onstage to the tune of The Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling” in a way that would make Elaine from Seinfeld look like Misty Copeland. 

But it wasn’t Tiffany’s lack of rhythm, or style, or grace that made her stand out. Nor was it the ham-handed way she talked about “her gays.” It was when she talked about her father’s long history of support for the “LGB_QIA+” community. 

No, that isn’t a typo. 

“I know what my father believes in. Prior to politics, he supported gays! Lesbians! The LGB_QIA+ community. Okay?” said Tiffany, in a voice that sounded like Mr. Ed after eating a jar of peanut butter.

Obviously, anyone that truly cares about the queer community would immediately notice Tiffany’s omission of the T in LGBTQIA+. Did she inadvertently reveal what she really thought about the transgender community? For someone who fancies herself as a queer ally, this is a pretty egregious mistake. 

But honestly, Tiffany came across as so flighty and stupid that one might consider giving this Real Housewives reject the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it was just a Freudian slip? 

But then she did it again!

In an interview adjacent to her stage speech, _iffany _rump said, “This is so pivotal for my generation, for all of my friends. They need to know the truth. My father supports the LGB_QIA+ community. We support all my best friends. Now they’re going to see it.”

_iffany’s performance raised the ire of the queer community almost immediately. It also caught the attention of Black Eyed Peas lead singer Will.i.am, who was not pleased with her song selection.

“@TiffanyATrump, I see that you walked out to #iGOTTAFEELING,” he wrote on Twitter. “But given the inequalities in America affecting LGBTQ, people of color and the disenfranchised, this song would have been more appropriate to walk out to…”

The clip then transitions into The Black Eyed Peas’ most recent video, a new version of their 2003 single “Where Is the Love?” which is now simply titled “The Love,” featuring Jennifer Hudson. Throughout the video, the group offers slightly updated lyrics to the song, while also playing clips of Joe Biden speaking about the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. President Trump infamously said that the unrest in Charlottesville, triggered by a torch-wielding white-supremacist mob that ended in the murder of anti-racist protester Heather Heyer, had “very fine people on both sides.” It was this Trump comment that convinced Biden to run for president. 

_iffany is either wildly honest or terribly clueless in her omission of the transgender community. ”Terribly clueless” seems to be the lead horse in this race. She recently celebrated her 27th birthday in Miami like a modern-day Marie Antionette, minus the empathy. There were no masks, and seemingly no regard for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have died as a result of her father’s careless mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis.

However, “wildly honest” is also a viable contender. After all, her father, who is no friend to the queer community in general, has specifically targeted transgender people throughout his tenure. Most notably, he reversed Obama’s protections for trans students in schools. He banned transgender service members from the military. He banned homeless trans people from shelters. He tried to reverse Obama’s healthcare protections for trans people. He pushed to allow discrimination against transgender people in the workplace. He nominated anti-LGBTQIA+ judges. The list goes on and on. 

At this point, Trump’s animus toward the transgender community is not a shock. What continues to bewilder us most is his ongoing effort to gaslight and attract queer voters by using some of the most divisive and offensive tactics imaginable. His shameless pandering to rich gay white men is so obvous that it’s embarassing. His strategy is to divide the queer community in much the same way he has divided the country. If he can turn us against each other, maybe, just maybe, he will gain a few more votes. 

Trump’s strategy is a smart one for any up-and-coming despot. Turning minority communities against each other is a famous distraction. The Log Cabin Republicans are a great example of how Trump targets the weak-minded in the queer community in order to amass power for himself.

As for _iffany, once the votes are counted on November 3, she (like Grenell and the Log Cabin Republicans she no doubt counts among “her gays”) will be of no use to Daddy. She will be back to playing second fiddle in the Trump Family Band. Perhaps she and Grenell can develop a conservative version of Will and Grace for the Fox News Channel. Shill and Base(ic). Set your DVRs.