By Robin Givhan / The Washington Post
The modest welcome took little more than a minute. Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska arrived by black SUV at the south entrance of the White House. Dressed in ivory and wearing pale blue heels, she stepped out of her vehicle in view of cameras as President Joe Biden and Jill Biden emerged from an arched doorway to greet her. The American first lady offered Zelenska a smile and an extended hug. The president presented her with a bouquet full of sunflowers tied with a ribbon in the Ukrainian national colors of blue and yellow. It was an official greeting, but also a friendly one.
The flowers were quickly handed off to an aide; they were a formality after all. Everyone lined up for pictures. They posed briefly, stiffly, along with the Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova. They were framed by their country’s flags, with the White House centered behind them, and two Marines standing at attention. They smiled pleasantly for the cameras. It was all very orderly, civil and polite. A tenuous grip on hopefulness as the very important people headed inside where Jill Biden would host a roundtable conversation about the brutality and cruelty of Russia’s war against Ukraine and its human costs.
These two first ladies were engaged in a display of soft power, the kind of gentle persuasion and intentional symbolism that has long emanated from the East Wing. It seems like such a quaint notion today.
But this is what first ladies do, and perhaps, sometime in the future, it will be what a first gentleman does as well. But at a time when civility and gentleness have been devalued and nonpolitical conversations about foreign policy and governmental interventions seem wholly impossible, one wonders whether Tuesday afternoon’s neatly choreographed comity was anything more than sweet nostalgia.
It’s hard to be optimistic about the power of a soft touch; about a symbol of American concern and good will outfitted in a daisy print dress and bright yellow pumps. The world is so coarse. Yet first ladies persist.
In May, Jill Biden visited Ukraine on Mother’s Day. She entered a country in the midst of a war and spent time with women and children who had been displaced by the bombing. She met with Zelenska, whose family, like so many others, have been ripped apart. It was a stirring occasion, the sight of these two women undaunted by danger, steadfast in their concern for children, for civilians. But it’s also difficult to remember the meeting clearly, to register the value in the symbolism. So much has happened since the conflict began in February, so many deaths – so many other emergencies, threats and causes for alarm.
What does it mean when these two first ladies stand in front of the cameras and ask us to give them our attention and to keep the human suffering in Ukraine in the front of our mind alongside inflation, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the weakening of democracy, the enduring gun violence, the climate crisis, the immigration crisis and all the personal crises that families confront on a daily basis? They are asking us to be civil.
First ladies aren’t a replacement for diplomacy. They’re a poor substitute for the nongovernmental organizations and charities and good Samaritans who are on the ground and in harm’s way. But the American first lady has traditionally been framed as a representative of the American people rather than the country’s politics. This was never entirely true and perhaps it was always an illusion. But now that illusion is harder to maintain or even believe because politics has chipped away at everything.
Michelle Obama was a popular first lady. In some corners of this divided country, people refer to her as their “forever first lady,” which may well be meant as a compliment to her but also suggests that no one else can harness the role’s unique symbolism to uplift and enlighten. It is as though, in Obama’s wake, her super fans have retired the title or they have conflated it with Obama herself.
Her successor, Melania Trump, didn’t seem intent on wresting the title back into neutral territory. She visited children and watched them make crafts. She dutifully oversaw the White House holiday decorations. Her anti-bullying campaign, Be Best, was a blur. She didn’t reclaim the title but instead allowed it to whither. In some quarters she was beloved, mostly it seemed, because she was not Obama.
And now there is Biden who has inhabited the role, not as an emblem of societal progress or a high-glamour variant, but as a traditionalist: she, the people. Biden is the emblem of calm, the nurturer, the heartfelt voice of concern of the American people. “You cannot go into a war zone and come back and not feel the sorrow and the pain of the people that I met,” she said to Zelenska. The two sat across from each other at a conference table in the Blue Room of the White House with their respective teams as they began a conversation about mental health among mothers, children and refugees in Ukraine.
Biden was joined by members of the president’s administration, along with second gentleman Doug Emhoff. She promised that each agency representative present would explain with specificity what they’re doing to be of service. This was the stuff of policy experts, medical professionals and diplomats. The proceedings don’t need first ladies. But the cameras don’t come to watch the wonks wade into briefing books, footnotes and addendums. The cameras come to capture the choreography.
Four short glass vases of sunflowers, blue hydrangeas and white orchids lined the center of the wooden table. Water glasses with paper covers were set in a line with military precision. Everyone remained standing behind their chair for introductions and then sat in unison. In a world that feels like everyone is in the midst of a constant brawl over things large and small, we persist in believing that these niceties matter.
The attendees folded their manicured hands on the table as Biden spoke. Emhoff leaned in. The first ladies smiled at each other. It was a reassuring dance. Then the cameras left the room.
Robin Givhan is senior critic-at-large writing about politics, race and the arts. A 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner for criticism, Givhan has also worked at Newsweek/Daily Beast, Vogue magazine and the Detroit Free Press. Follow her on Twitter @RobinGivhan.
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