Hillary Clinton

...(Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner's) commitment to their candidate has taken aback those who knew them as avowed Democrats — friends of Chelsea Clinton who, back in 2013, threw a fund-raiser for Cory Booker. “It’s all anyone is talking about,” says a member of their social circle. “People are totally horrified. But she doesn’t seem to let it affect her at all.”

But it must be said: Ivanka is not going to save us. She is not, as the Latin-American and Mexican version of Marie Claire​ recently begged, going to stop her father by talking to him. If she has tried to get him to tone it down, as reports have suggested, it should be pretty clear by now that she has failed. She is not, as a piece of fanfiction in the ​Times​ recently postulated, secretly donating to Hillary. She did not miss the registration deadline for the Republican primary on purpose. She is not, after 34 years of control, going to lose her cool and rebel. As Ivanka has told us repeatedly: “Trumps play to win.” And that’s what she and her husband, Jared Kushner, seem to be exclusively focused on now. Ivanka has been an increasingly visible presence on the trail and is expected to play a starring role at the Republican National Convention. Recently, Senator Bob Corker went so far as to suggest that she’d be a great running mate for her father, adding that he’d never “met a more composed, brilliant, beautiful-in-every-way person.” (This too is wishful thinking — sorry, Republicans, she won’t save you either.)

Perhaps that’s what is so unsettling about Ivanka, why we want there to be more to the story. Before the campaign, New Yorkers liked what we saw reflected in her — she was wealthy and successful and driven but seemed fundamentally decent. Now she is mirroring something else, which is that many of us are willing to overlook ugliness in exchange for success. “One thing I am starting to learn about the circle they move in is that it’s rare to find someone at that level who is truly wholesome and liberal,” says the college friend of Kushner’s, who points out that to people accustomed to rationalizing sky-high bonuses, unfair labor practices, rampant economic inequality, and blackmail, Trump’s rants about building a wall are just another unsavory reality to ignore. “You don’t make billions by being nice.”