When President Trump delivers his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, First Lady Melania Trump will be flanked by more than a dozen invited guests in the balcony — and one of them is raising eyebrows.
Most of the 13 guests scheduled to sit with FLOTUS are expected choices: a young girl who has survived cancer, the father of a fallen military member, a first responder, and a synagogue member who survived the Tree of Life mass shooting in Pittsburgh.
But one young man, meant to represent FLOTUS’ “Be Best” anti-bullying campaign, stands out for one very specific reason.
Yes, of all the bullied children in the D.C metro area, not to mention the entire country, Melania chose a child with the same last name as hers. That’s not to make light of the bullying Joshua has experienced, but it does emphasize where the Trumps’ real concerns lie: squarely with themselves.
Trump SOTU guests include: family of couple killed by unauthorized immigrant; human trafficking investigator; survivors of Pittsburgh massacre; Alice Johnson; recovering opioid addict; re-hired sawmill employee; child cancer survivor; kid bullied for being named Joshua Trump.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) February 5, 2019
The reactions to Melania’s choice largely focused on how the Trumps have managed to make a child’s suffering about themselves at the expense of the many other children who experience bullying.
If @realDonaldTrump is inviting #JoshuaTrump to the #SOTU for being bullied because of the Trump name—he should also invite the millions of Muslim, immigrant, refugee, Black, indigenous, Latino, Jewish, LGBTQ human beings, daily being terrorized because of the Trump Presidency.
— John Pavlovitz (@johnpavlovitz) February 5, 2019
Okay, yeah, I’m sorry Joshua Trump gets made fun of because of his last name. He didn’t choose to have a shitty last name.
Here are some of the things me and my friends were bullied for that we didn’t choose either:
-having autism
-being gay
-being bi
-being trans
-being fat— Captain America’s Beard
RIP (@khaleesi_britt) February 5, 2019
Donald Trump will gladly use Joshua Trump as a political pond and completely ignore the children he put in cages..
— Christopher Fogt. (@iCruells) February 5, 2019
I’m not trying to minimize the effects of bullying on a kid named #JoshuaTrump (poor thing), but there are LGBT children who are being bullied to death. Literally. They would have been good kids to invite to the #SOTU also.
— Lesley Abravanel (@lesleyabravanel) February 5, 2019
It’s also worth nothing that at least one study has confirmed what educators across the country have reported: Bullying has gone up in areas that voted for Trump.
Meanwhile, Democrats are sending a message with their invited guests, especially those who are running in the 2020 election. Sen. Kristen Gillibrand has invited Blake Dremann, a transgender member of the Navy, which is seen as a direct rebuke of Trump’s ban on transgender people serving in the military.
Sen. Gillibrand isn’t the only one, though, as three Democratic members of the House of Representatives — Rep. A. Donald McEachin, Rep. Chris Pappas, and Rep. Jackie Speier — will do the same.
Last April, I asked Sec Mattis whether he would thought courageous trans servicemembers like AF Staff Sgt Ireland are a “burden” on our military. This year I’m proud to have Staff Sgt Ireland as my guest of honor at the #SOTU. He’s proof that our #trans troops make us stronger! pic.twitter.com/TAj3sOeXwU
— Jackie Speier (@RepSpeier) February 1, 2019
Sen. Kamala Harris is bringing Trisha Pesiri-Dybvik, a Southern California woman who lost her home in one of 2018’s terrible series of wildfires and who, along with her husband, was furloughed as air traffic controllers during the recent government shutdown.
And Rep. Coleman Watson has invited Victorina Morales, the undocumented worker at Trump’s Bedminster, NJ golf club who shared her story with the New York Times.
So, on Tuesday night, the capitol will be a swirl of political division, and one young boy will find himself in the middle.
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