Ivanka, Do The Right Thing!

The measure of a civilized society should not just be how well it treats its least fortunate, but also how it treats a future it won’t live to see. Expect neither form of civilization in the near future. We were promised barbarism and we’re going to get it: an anti-intellectual rage directed at all of the things that actually made America great. Including science. I don’t think anyone has ever seen such a vindictive onslaught, particularly on environmental science, as Trump’s cabinet choices presage.

Most of the damage a new administration will do by ignoring scientific evidence will happen after Trump and much of his cabinet are dead, and me with them, but I do care about the children of the future, and somehow you expect the same from young mothers ― even Ivanka Trump. I loved my mother, but she was an alcoholic and I didn’t pretend she wasn’t. Had she done harm to my children, I would have yelled at her. If she was harming a lot of kids, I would have spoken against her publicly. Ivanka should do the same thing: have more loyalty to her children and the children of America than to her father, no matter how unwell he is. Grab a place in history, Ivanka, and come right out and say it: “My father is in a small room smoking a cigar and blowing smoke in the face of our children and I am appalled.”

Ivanka went to the same school as my daughter. It’s a pretty good school. The father came out of Queens with a chip on his shoulder, the daughter came out of Chapin with a Kelly bag and an education. She ought to know better. To quote the Chapin school motto: Fortiter et Recte - Bravely and Rightly.

Go Ivanka!