Barbara, Melania, and the soft power America’s first lady
Plus: How Real ID is an example of government design as compromise
Barbara, Melania, and the soft power America’s first lady
Ahead of Mother’s Day Sunday, one first lady paid homage to another in a ceremony that celebrated the platform they share.
First lady Melania Trump was on hand Thursday for the unveiling ceremony of the U.S. Postal Service’s new forever stamp of the late Barbara Bush. Just the seventh former first lady to be pictured on a postage stamp, Bush’s shows detail of her official White House portrait, painted in 2005 by Charles Fagan.
It’s “her favorite portrait,” her daughter Doro Bush Koch said at the ceremony, held in the White House East Room, and “perfectly captures mom’s poise and dignity.”
While contemporary national politics is too often defined by zero-sum, male-dominated machismo, America’s all-female first ladies have proven there’s real influence in the soft power of their unelected office. The ceremony for Bush’s stamp was a reminder.
Koch — who represented her family in glaring lieu of other high-profile Bush family members, like former President George W. Bush — spoke of her mother’s greatest hits as FLOTUS, from her advocacy for literacy to her famous 1989 photo holding a baby boy with AIDS, which challenged stigma and encouraged compassion in a deadly epidemic.
“That simple compassionate act captured in a photo that made national headlines spoke louder than words ever could,” Koch said. As she recalled, her mother was determined to make the most of her time as first lady. “Mom told her staff she wanted to do something every day to help others, so that’s what she did,” she said. “She scheduled many events and visits that highlighted a need, helped encourage volunteerism, or focused on literacy.”
The retelling of Bush’s time as first lady stood in stark contrast to Trump’s tenure as FLOTUS so far this time around. Trump has spent less than 14 days at the White House since the Inauguration, the most low-profile first lady since Bess Truman, historian Katherine Jellison told the New York Times. And while her backing of the bipartisan Take It Down Act is a high-profile example of standing up for something she believes in, her slow-moving platform as first lady and a $40 million movie deal with Amazon suggest other priorities.
Still, a first lady stamp unveiling provides a perfect venue for the president’s wife to build bridges across political tribes. Former first lady Jill Biden used the occasion of Nancy Reagan’s stamp unveiling in 2022 to commend her Republican predecessor for communicating the stories she heard of everyday Americans back to her husband and for speaking about her breast cancer diagnosis. For her part, Trump was gracious to an old guard Republican family in a way her husband isn’t, commending Bush for a trait some of her own fans (in China, of all places) say they see in her: “her respect for tradition while also breaking with convention.”
When Bush spoke at the all-female Wellesley College commencement in 1990, her invitation wasn’t universally well received since she was a public figure through marriage. Bush’s commencement speech put family first — “At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a child, a friend or a parent,” she said — but her kicker was a joke that didn’t conform to traditional political gender norms.
“Who knows, somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow my footsteps and preside over the White House as the president's spouse,” she said. “And I wish him well.”
President Donald Trump has taken on some of the traditional duties of first lady without his wife at the White House, per the Times, including making decisions about decor, greeting tour groups, and hosting Women’s History Month receptions. But lacking the gentle touch that makes the role of first lady influential, he’s a poor fit for the job.
First lady is a role that so far only women and moms have held, and though the U.S. could one day have its first male first gentleman just as Bush once predicted, he’ll have big shoes to fill. The quiet force of a first lady’s influence isn’t based on partisanship or the usual strong arm tactics of electoral politics. Instead, it’s built through traits like love and listening and by being an example in ways that speak louder than words.
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