Power of the purse (and the shoe)

I have a really hard time finding shoes that fit. I’m a 6 ½ narrow in an “our narrows start at 7” world. When I find a pair of shoes that stay on my feet, I become as fixated on possessing them as those folks charging through big box store doors at midnight on Black Friday to grab a “just 100 at this price” big screen TV.

So imagine my joy, five or six years ago, when I spotted a pair of nicely styled dress shoes, size 6 ½ and exactly the right color and heel height for my special occasion dress. While they were medium width, they ran narrow. A fit! And on sale, to boot. Then I looked inside and saw two words: Ivanka Trump.

I had nothing against Ivanka at the time, but I was already boycotting her father’s products because of the birther nonsense he was spouting about Barack Obama. Our hard earned dollars weren’t going to someone who behaved so boorishly toward our duly elected, born-in-the-USA President. No suits or shirts or ties from The Donald for my husband. Nope.

But shoes. PRETTY shoes. Shoes that FIT.

No can do. I slowly put the shoes back on the shelf and resumed my quest for politically correct, non-Trump pumps.

Today, however, I wouldn’t hesitate for a nanosecond. I’d drop those shoes like a hot potato – which is exactly how a friend described her reaction to seeing a great casual top at a department store the other day, picking it up, and then realizing it was an Ivanka product. “It was as if my hands were on fire,” she laughed.

Ivanka Trump’s just-announced policy proposal to resolve the long-standing , oft-debated problem of affordable child care for American families -- and her imperious, tone-deaf reaction to its critics – were the last straw.

In announcing her father’s policy proposal, she called it a “revolutionary” idea that would address “the lack of affordable, safe, quality child care…in a comprehensive way.” She called it a “giant leap from where we are today, which is sadly, nothing,” and declared it “a really incredible plan that has pushed the boundaries of what anyone else is talking about. On child care specifically, there are no proposals on the table.”

It is a child care proposal that Ivanka’s own clothing manufacturing company and many of her father’s properties don’t offer to employees today – their personal rendition of “do as I say, not as I do.”

It applies only to working mothers, and offers only a tax deduction -- useful to high-income earners who can wait for tax season to write off weekly or monthly child care costs but meaningless to lower-income workers who can’t afford to front the money and might not qualify for a deduction in any event.

And in clearly backwards Robin Hood fashion, it steals from existing unemployment insurance funds to pay for its maternity leave provision.

Trump’s plan is hardly “revolutionary.” It would be far more fitting to label this one-percenter-devised tax break for upper income earners as the stuff from which working-class revolution is born.

She and Papa Trump added insult to injury by falsely claiming that Hillary Clinton has offered no child care policy proposals at all – a phony criticism they could have avoided making had anyone on their campaign team taken a cursory glance at hillaryclinton.com/issues, where the Democratic nominee’s family and child care policy proposals have been posted for the past year.

So, Ivanka dear, I just wanted to let you know: I’m not just boycotting your father now. I’m boycotting you and your brothers and your husband and anyone I can identify who has anything to do with any one of you. You don’t deserve my money. You deserve my contempt.

And, in case you were wondering if your shameful policy pander will convince this woman – or pretty much any other rational, self-respecting female voter in America – to change our minds and vote for your daddy, you can stop wondering right now.

I’ve been “with her.” I’m still “with her.” And I’ll be “with her” on Tuesday, November 8, and for every day of Hillary Clinton’s truly revolutionary presidency.