I don’t like reading articles where the story is entirely buried between the lines — if you’re a journalist, plain-spoken brevity is a virtue. That’s why this article in The Atlantic about Ivanka Trump is agonizing. It’s long, and all you’re going to glean from it is that Ivanka is a cipher who takes great pains in maintaining a poised appearance, and is careful to avoid any conflict with her asshole father. The author is equally careful to avoid criticizing Ivanka, who, characteristically, refuses to go on the record anywhere in the story, and clearly got the access to write the story by a history of pandering to the Trump family. Like the first time she met Ivanka:

Ivanka was hard to miss—taller and prettier than everyone else. I was a fan, as were most girls I knew. We thought she had it all—her own company, a pretty family, a pretty apartment. When I saw an opening, I told her as much. She thanked me and told me she liked my dress. We took a photo together, which I posted on Instagram.

Wait. A “fan” of Ivanka, along with most of her friends? Until she got elevated to an unearned position of power, I and most of the people I know had no idea who this pampered rich girl was. What kind of person did you have to be to be aware of Ivanka Trump?

Then, even as the author is trying to be inoffensive, she succeeds in revealing through what she doesn’t say how empty Ivanka is.

It’s a great boring slog of an article, but I did run across one interesting comment. It’s Donald Trump once again attributing a virtue to … fucking genetics.

The president went on: “She’s got a great calmness … I’ve seen her under tremendous stress and pressure. She reacts very well—that’s usually a genetic thing, but it’s one of those things, nevertheless.” He added: “She’s got a tremendous presence when she walks into the room.”

Calmness is usually a genetic thing? Then how did Ivanka inherit it, since her father is a temperamental histrionic toad?