I agree with so much in this article, but I would simply say, what about Ivanka? There, we have an utterly mediocre, vacuous white WOMAN who is given so much power simply because of who’s she related to. I could go on, but my point is, it’s not JUST whiteness and maleness that makes people like Jared and Ivanka abhorrent (and Don Jr.). It’s class privilege.

I’ve been listening to Sarah Kendzior’s new book (audiobook), and she nails it so much. Jared (and Ivanka) are part of an international, criminal syndicate. And one of the key things that this syndicate has sought to monopolise is opportunity. It is heavily based in class, including an enormously steep class divide.

I worry that contemporary discussion in the US (and I was born there but moved to Australia) still misses how important class is. Class invisibility is page one in the Republican playbook. So that white men who are poor sign up, against their better interests, in racist, sexist, anti-LGBTQ, anti-diversity programs that benefit those in the entitled class. We need more more Marxist analysis of how ideology is functioning. Jared isn’t just white and male — he was born into privilege. He has failed upward at every single opportunity: father bought his way into Harvard, worst real estate deal in NYC history paid off by cronyism with foreign crime syndicate… errr… petro-wealth.

One reasons he can say that this is a ‘success’ with a straight face is that the guy has no idea what success and failure actually are, nor has he really had to run the sorts of risks the non-rich navigate routinely. All he knows is screwing stuff up and having his butt saved and then thinking he’s a genius because he’s got these advantages. Like Molly Ivins said about GW, ‘born on third and thought he hit a triple.’ Jared is used to striking out but he gets to run the bases for a ‘home run’ anyway because his daddy or cronies own the park.