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Just Because One Can … (Gwen Moritz Editor’s Note)

4 min read

Here’s how my stream of consciousness works. I read that a Harvard geneticist is hoping to use genetic engineering to recreate the woolly mammoth, a long-extinct relative of the elephant. It brought to mind the plot of “Jurassic Park,” and that reminded me of the moral of Michael Crichton’s best-selling novel: Just because one can do something doesn’t mean one should.

And that reminded me of our new president.

It may not be illegal for President Trump to tweet-shame a department store chain for dropping his daughter’s line of fashion merchandise, but just because he can doesn’t mean he should.

It’s bad enough that the president of the United States attempts to communicate about substantive policy issues in 140 characters or fewer, leading to all manner of cleanup-on-Aisle-5 moments for his communications staff. But the tweet about Nordstrom was disturbing specifically because it didn’t have to be walked back or explained. It was exactly what it appeared to be: The president publicly bullying a private company for making a business decision that would result in less money flowing to his family.

Of course, the president didn’t put it that way. Thus wrote the man whose chief qualification for the highest office in the country (or so we were told) was his business acumen: “My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person — always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!”

The president didn’t say what was so unfair about dropping Ivanka’s merchandise. His tweet suggests that a “great person” has a birthright to continued business relationships, but no competent businessman can possibly believe that.

Nordstrom, which had informed Ivanka Trump weeks earlier, did not announce the decision but confirmed it to a trade journal as “part of the regular rhythm of our business.”

The White House rejected that simple explanation. Sean Spicer, the president’s hapless press secretary, essentially said Nordstrom was lying. “This is a direct attack on his policies and her name,” Spicer said, adding that Ivanka was “being maligned” by Nordstrom.

As is becoming distressingly typical for this White House, Spicer offered no examples or proof that this was a political rather than business decision. A few days later, the Wall Street Journal got its hands on internal documents showing that sales of Ivanka Trump merchandise were off by about a third during 2016 and by more than 70 percent for several weeks in October, just before her father was elected without winning the popular vote.

Spicer could have taken the easy way out by suggesting that Nordstrom buckled to a politically motivated boycott of Trump-labeled merchandise. (College-educated women, the type more likely to shop at Nordstrom, were more likely to vote for Hillary Clinton than for Donald Trump.) Instead, Spicer played the Dad card, saying the president had “every right” to defend against Nordstrom’s “attack on his daughter.”

Is it still helicopter parenting if the child is 35 and the dad flies on Marine One?

Nordstrom’s stock took a little hit shortly after the president’s tweet, then ended the day up 4 percent. Investors presumably think dropping Ivanka Trump’s merchandise will not make the chain of stores less profitable.

I didn’t even realize Ivanka Trump had her own clothing brand until she followed up her speech at the Republican National Convention last summer with a tweet about where to buy the dress she wore. Again: The fact that she could use such an important occasion for self-serving marketing doesn’t mean she should have. Terrible!


Kellyanne Conway, the campaign manager who now has the title of adviser to the president, followed up the president’s tweet attack on Nordstrom by going on Fox News and offering up a “free commercial” (her words) in which she declared her intention to add to her personal collection of Ivanka Trump merchandise. I rather doubt fashionable women look to Conway as a trendsetter. Worse, it really is against the law for a federal employee to use her position to promote a private business.


Defenders of the president compared the episode to Harry Truman’s defense of his daughter after a music critic panned her vocal performance. Other than that both involve presidents and their daughters, the two episodes aren’t remotely comparable.

Margaret Truman’s critic, Paul Hume, expressed his opinion publicly, while President Truman made his defense of his daughter privately. (Hume later sold the letter, which is why we know what it said.) This is the exact opposite of Nordstrom and President Trump.


Gwen Moritz is editor of Arkansas Business. Email her at GMoritz@ABPG.com.
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