Cleopatra famously captured the center of Julius Caesar to advance her personal energy and safe the Egyptian throne. With a mixture of wit and allure, she beguiled Caesar right into a passionate romance that sparked scandalous rumors from Alexandria to Rome.
Again in Caesar’s villa, his third spouse Calpurnia in all probability seethed with impotent rage. How might her husband, essentially the most highly effective man within the recognized world, fall beneath the spell of this overseas temptress? Quick ahead to 2024, and we discover ourselves witnessing a curiously comparable dynamic unfolding within the Trump family. Laura Loomer, a self-styled “guerrilla journalist” with a penchant for Islamophobic stunts and conspiracy theories, has all of a sudden develop into Donald Trump‘s fixed shadow, accompanying him to rallies, debates, and even solemn memorials. We will’t even think about that Melania, Trump’s third spouse, is strictly thrilled with this new improvement.
At a cryptocurrency convention this summer time, Trump singled out Loomer for reward, calling her a “unbelievable individual, nice girl.” Since then, she has clung to the previous man like a barnacle to a whale.
It’s a symbiotic relationship.
Like Cleopatra, Loomer understands that proximity to energy is its personal aphrodisiac. Trump, alternatively, is at all times in want of latest arm sweet to stroke his ego. Bear in mind Kellyanne Conway? Or Hope Hicks? Loomer’s simply the most recent in a protracted line of ego-strokers, able to whisper candy nothings within the Donald’s ear whereas he live-tweets his bowel actions.
A compilation video making the rounds on Twitter has solely fanned the flames the place the 2 will be seen in a collection of compromising embraces – Trump’s tiny hand snaking round Loomer’s waist, Loomer urgent herself in opposition to Trump’s paunch, the 2 exchanging coy glances and whispered endearments.
In a single clip, Trump will be heard gushing over Loomer, calling her a “very robust individual, very brave individual, a warrior,” earlier than asking, “Laura, the place are youuu?” in a tone paying homage to a lovesick teenager. In one other clip, Loomer’s even been caught shouting “I like you” at Trump’s RNC speech, whereas the tangerine dream blows kisses again from the stage. I imply, join the dots, people.
Trump’s public drooling over Loomer ought to come as no shock. He’s made it abundantly clear that knuckle-dragging white nationalists and unapologetic bigots are the spine of his loyal base, as evidenced by his heat and fuzzy dinners with Holocaust-denying scumbags and antisemitic washed-up musicians like Kanye West. A number of the MAGA devoted are doing double-takes at Loomer’s dizzying ascent. When Marjorie Taylor Greene, of all folks, thinks you’ve crossed the road, effectively, that’s actually saying one thing.
However spare a thought for poor Melania, the forgotten girl on this sordid little love triangle. In spite of everything, it was only some quick years in the past that her husband’s alleged dalliances with porn stars and Playboy fashions splashed throughout the tabloids. Now, as Loomer’s star ascends, Melania finds herself as soon as once more shunted to the sidelines in a drama not of her making.
She’s been manifestly absent from key occasions, together with the 9/11 memorial in her personal yard in New York Metropolis. As a substitute, it was Loomer who stood entrance and middle by Trump’s aspect. Some have cruelly prompt that Melania is already daydreaming about placing a continent or two between herself and the White Home, ought to the unthinkable come to go in 2024. Perhaps Melania will snap and go all Actual Housewives on Trump. However actually, if Trump and Loomer are the most effective we are able to do, we’re all Cleopatra, crusing blithely down the Nile whereas Rome burns behind us.
