In the aftermath of the second Trump impeachment, people have been suggesting that two of the surrogates who could keep the Trump legacy alive are Ivanka Trump and Lara Trump.  And who knows, maybe the Trump family will become a political dynasty like the Kennedy and Bush families. But I don’t think that’s guaranteed. For one thing, what is “Trumpism” without Trump himself, aside from a kind of incoherent anti-immigrant and anti-regulatory fervor. Trump is the icon, the FU President who didn’t give a shit about what anybody else thought, who would just give it to the “libtards” and enjoy doing it.

Ivanka Trump

The beautiful daughter has moved to Florida and is being promoted as a potential rival to Marco Rubio. Ivanka, 39, who attended Georgetown University before graduating with a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, has only worked in the Trump organization and in the White House (as an unspecified advisor). 

Ivanka, who used to be friends with Chelsea Clinton, has historically been kind of a moderate Democrat. She changed her voter registration to Republican in 2018, and has been quoted as saying “[L]ike many of my fellow millennials, I do not consider myself categorically Republican or Democrat.”  

What Ivanka lacks is the bluster and audacity of her father, who has never met a lie he wasn’t willing to commit to. Ivanka is also an intellectual lightweight, and is likely to be a gaffe machine on the campaign trail or in political debates.

Can she beat “little” Marco Rubio?

Maybe.

She likely wouldn’t be a worse Senator than Rubio, and there would be some Schadenfreude in watching an enabling sycophant like Rubio being taken out by a member of the family he spent four years brown-nosing. But until someone is actually a candidate, we won’t know how they actually perform. (See Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign, if you don’t know what I mean.)

Lara Trump

North Carolina-born Lara Trump, the wife of Eric Trump, is a much spicier, much more blustery version of Ivanka Trump. A sharp partisan, Lara, who graduated  from North Carolina State University, was a story coordinator and producer for Inside Edition from 2012 to 2016 before she joined Trump’s 2016 campaign. She was a well-regarded surrogate with a willingness to speak her mind, both in 2016 and in 2020.

At the moment Lara and Eric and their two children live in New York, so they would have to move to North Carolina, where Senator Richard Burr is retiring. Lara has teased the idea that she might run there, but of course, teasing isn’t the same thing as doing.

Finally, both Ivanka and Eric might still be indicted in New York for participating in various tax fraud schemes, at least if you believe the information in Mary L. Trump’s Too Much and Never Enough. So let’s see before we anoint the Trump family America’s next royal family.