An Open Letter To Future First Lady Melania Trump, From A Grassroots Progressive [Opinion]

Dear Melania,

You don’t know me, but I’ve had a chance to get to know you through research and observation. As an American who believes in grassroots progressive ideals who feels utterly betrayed by outgoing President Barack Obama, I’d like to impart a bit of advice. I’m sure you’re getting loads of it from your experts, but maybe not so much from average, everyday Americans. This is where I may help because, unlike some of my peers, I desperately want you to succeed in your position as first lady.

Your husband has gotten the lion’s share of the attention as president-elect, but not much attention has turned to you, Melania. I wanted to remedy that, so I asked my friends and followers to discuss issues they’d like to see you tackle. The responses I got were mostly positive and constructive, with few hostile or dismissive comments. Here’s the list of issues we feel you are uniquely qualified to advocate as first lady. And if you tackle just a fraction of these, your impact could be more powerful than many first ladies who came before you.

Your chosen issue of online bullying is a good cause, yet your husband is a habitual online bully himself. Melania, I beseech you, put your money where your mouth is and rein in The Donald’s mean Twitter habit, for all our sakes. The president must set a positive example, a dignified example, for all Americans, and the world, but the image he’s conveying is one of a mean, low-brow bully. As first lady, you can be a strong influence on your husband’s online behavior.

We would love to see you work with children with disabilities and children who are at risk of suicide. This could mesh well with your online anti-bullying advocacy you’ve already chosen. Often LGBT youth are bullied online, putting them at increased risk of suicide. Already, LGBT youth have a greater risk of suicide, and it is the number two cause of death in young people aged 10 to 24, according to the Trevor Project.

https://twitter.com/RMac18/status/807261930968616960

Throughout Mr. Trump’s campaign, Melania, you were an enigma, a voiceless presence at your husband’s side. Grassroots progressives want more than that. We want a first lady willing to take on controversial issues like human trafficking. Even though Michelle Obama was highly educated, she chose the “soft” issue of nutrition and childhood obesity. You can be more than just a soft-issue first lady. Now is your time to shine.

As an immigrant yourself, Melania, you could play a strong supporting role in immigration reform and integration of legal immigrants into American society. You are the first modern first lady not born in the United States (the very first foreign-born first lady was Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, born in London. According to WhiteHouse.gov she was wife of sixth President John Quincy Adams). This makes you uniquely qualified to play a supporting role in immigration, and I, and other grassroots progressives, would be interested in seeing you address it,

According to the U.S. government, your native Slovenia is a source country for forced labor trafficking. Men, women, and children are trafficked for a variety of purposes, from hard labor to sex slaves. As first lady, you, Melania, could be a strong voice advocating for the protection of the world’s most vulnerable against heinous abuses throughout the world.

Ignore the haters who question your intelligence. Anyone who studied architecture and is fluent in five languages is no dummy. The fact that you did not obtain a degree is beside the point. NBC News caught up with Blaz Matija Vogelnik, a former professor of yours, who told the news outlet that you passed rigorous testing to gain entry into the University of Ljubljana in your native Slovenia, and that he believes your IQ is high.

But you’re in good company, Melania. Neither Bill Gates nor Steve Jobs finished college. By pursuing a modeling career, you were able to honestly earn a comfortable amount of money, in a short amount of time. You were able to travel the world as part of your job, so I’d like to see you use your experience to educate Americans on different world cultures, and encourage more responsible international travel.

Knowing that you are a woman who speaks five languages fluently, we would love to see you support ESL programs in schools. As first lady, you could help make foreign languages a bigger part of children’s education, from elementary school to high school. In 2012, US News reported that funding for foreign language programs was cut, both at the federal level and the state level. Melania, we know you have no real policy-making power to reverse this, but you could use your influence to argue in favor of more funding. After all, it could be seen as a national security issue: The more foreign languages kids learn in school, the better prepared they’ll be to take up jobs that require knowledge of specific languages, particularly military and foreign service jobs.

Unlike Republicans like Rush Limbaugh, who said he wanted President Obama to fail, we grassroots progressives don’t feel the same way about your husband. While we are justifiably reticent about him, we remain hopeful that if enough Americans stand up, we can influence him to do good for all Americans. We hold the same cautious optimism regarding your future work as First Lady Melania Trump. We wish you well in 2017.

Sincerely,

A Grassroots Progressive

[Featured image by Patrick Semansky/AP Images]