On Sunday, President Donald Trump acknowledged that his “major combat operations” in Iran will likely result in the death and wounding of U.S. troops, and then, in his signature Trumpian way, basically shrugged that off. “That’s the way it is,” he said bluntly. (Six Americans have already died, as have about 700 Iranians.)
Ah, but surely things would be different, and Trump would treat the war with the gravity it deserves, if one of his own kids were among the service members risking their lives, right? That, or something like it, is the argument behind the new website DraftBarronTrump.com and the hashtag #SendBarron, which trended over the weekend. Barron Trump, as a reminder, is Trump’s youngest child, who is currently a 19-year-old sophomore at New York University and was most recently in the news when it came out last month that he may have saved a woman’s life over FaceTime.
The Draft Barron Trump website, which, it ought to be said, probably took all of half an hour to get online, was the brainchild of a comedy writer and serial anti-Trump website impresario named Toby Morton. It consists of little more than a few photos and fake testimonials that don’t really make sense—why would sending Barron to war need a testimonial from Donald Trump? Could he not just, uh, send him if he wanted to?
But those are quibbles, and honestly, a half-assed website is hardly the real issue with the Pvt. Barron Trump fantasy. When I see people like Hasan Piker tweeting that Barron should be sent off to the war, I understand that the idea is that President Trump deserves to be forced to experience the pain of having someone he loves in the line of fire. But when has the president ever proved himself to be a human being in possession of a beating heart? It’s kind of the whole problem with him, and it’s just as true for his personal life as it is for his politics. His cruelty to his own children, especially his eldest, Don Jr., has been whispered about for years—there’s the story about how he slapped him in his college dorm and the one about how he called him a “loser” when he was a 4-year-old. Four! I’m not saying Trump is at all likely to send Barron off to war, because he’s not, but I am saying he probably wouldn’t miss him much if he did. As Trump demonstrated in the recent Melania documentary, he barely seems to know him anyway.
Speaking of Melania, this much should be obvious, but the first lady, way more than the president, would never allow her only child to be sent to war. This is the same kid who had a Slovenian accent as a child despite being raised in America because the only people he was ever around were his mother and his maternal grandparents. If Melania wouldn’t even let Barron socialize with other preschoolers, she’s not letting him go to war. Barron has continued to stay close to the nest, living in Trump Tower rather than the dorms for his freshman year at NYU and then opting to study at the university’s D.C. campus for his second year in order to live at the White House. This mama’s boy will be skipping basic training, thank you.
So Barron’s not going anywhere near any battlefields. But as a thought experiment, let’s imagine what it would be like if he did. His experience might be a lot like that of Prince Harry, who wrote in his memoir Spare about his time in Afghanistan. Though Harry really fought (and killed people) there, he was also given special treatment, and was withdrawn by security forces the second his deployment was leaked to the media. In some imagined scenario where Barron ended up enlisting, he too would likely be insulated from the worst outcomes because of who he is.
If I sound a little dismissive of a bunch of people angrily hoping that Trump’s actions could for once have consequences, that’s because all the jokes about Barron going to war feel a little first-term to me. They’re reminiscent of a time of #Resistance cranks and dumb Trump-Putin memes. Barron is going to have a perfectly lovely life. He is probably having a nice video chat with an accused sex trafficker as we speak. Is it any consolation that he probably hates his father? Maybe a little.
