Melania Trump has put her support for abortion rights at the centre of her forthcoming memoir – you might even call it the news line. This has confused some observers. “It’s hard to follow the logic of putting out the former First Lady’s book right before the election, undercutting President Trump’s message to pro-life voters,” wrote one anti-abortion activist, Kristen Hawkins.
Donald Trump, meanwhile, remains where he was on the subject, which is … well, where is he, exactly? He wants the credit for overturning Roe v Wade – and probably deserves it, given that he appointed the hard-right judges whose views were decisive. But he also wants the issue of reproductive rights to stop energising Kamala Harris’s campaign.
Last week, he posted his most terrifying message yet on social media, not just because it was all in capital letters: “WOMEN WILL BE HAPPY, HEALTHY, CONFIDENT AND FREE! YOU WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION, BECAUSE IT IS NOW WHERE IT ALWAYS HAD TO BE, WITH THE STATES.” Does it sound a tiny bit as if he thinks becoming president will give him hypnotic powers, whereby he can shout his way into women’s minds and decide what they are thinking about? Or am I being paranoid?
I would say Melania’s logic is easy to follow: she is in favour of a woman’s right to choose; she prizes her right to her own opinion more highly than a semblance of unity with her husband; and she doesn’t much mind if he loses the election.
Donald’s logic is impossible to follow at the level of the sentence. He can’t reliably say which state he is in, or which candidate he is running against. He will start a thought on immigration and land it miles away, on the merits of his own body and how much more beautiful it is than Joe Biden’s. The real damage Melania has done is not that she has differed on principle with Donald; it’s that, in saying something rational, she has invited you to imagine their domestic life – him rambling about sharks, her tuning him out, possibly wearing noise-cancelling headphones.
• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
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