The surreal and eternal silence of Jared Kushner



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Sure On Thursday evening, White House senior advisor Jared Kushner arrived at Winder Building in Washington to attend a meeting, apparently focusing on NAFTA negotiations, at the US Trade Representative's office. As he approached the entrance to the building, accompanied by a man wearing a headset, Kushner was accosted by journalists who asked him what role Canada had played in the trade agreement. Time the day before. Kushner, predictably, did not answer the questions, but what could have been just another banal interaction between Trump's son-in-law and the press quickly became something more weird and revealing, Kushner realizing that the building door was closed and he was stuck outside. For almost two minutes – filmed by Katie Simpson, a journalist with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, then posted on Twitter – Kushner stood near the entrance without any words, back to reporters. Wearing a thin, dark suit, his hair clean as a brooch as a freshman, he tried the door handle several times; buzzing the intercom, waiting for an answer that did not come, then buzzed again; took out his phone and seemed to browse it, as useless as a man would get up at a first date, then raised it to his ear, speaking in an inaudible way. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the door opened and it was introduced. Curtain!

In an administration whose actions often take on the appearance of a horror film, the incident was a moment of sheer difficulty, with Kushner in the role of the unfortunate Buster Keaton , his body hindered by the physical environment that surrounded him. The association of tall and light Kushner and his chunky chunky mate made me think of a vaudeville act. As I watched, and then revisited, the video, I almost expected to see a Steinway drop right on Kushner, a few feet west of the White House. But, as is often the case with the silent movie physical comedy, there was also a hint of surrealism in Kushner's situation – something of muted quality, out of time, almost avant-garde. The silence of the senior counselor was also reflected by the reporters, who, after asking several initial questions, fell silent almost uniformly. Watching the video gave me the somewhat disturbing feeling of the weather, as if I were watching images dating back to the seventies showing a slowing down in a car factory or a theatrical Butoh scene with an icy rhythm, in which every gesture and expression has a mysterious meaning.

True interiority is, by nature, always an enigma for others. But Kushner, despite his omnipresence in our lives since the campaign and the election of his father-in-law, could present a riddle more veiled than most. It is so obscure that in June of last year, several months after the beginning of the Trump presidency, the Internet was surprised and delighted with what appeared to be, for the first time, a public speech. ("Have you ever heard of it?" Asked John Oliver in April 2017). And despite repeated claims that Kushner, a metropolitan Jew from the East Coast, would have attempted, with his wife Ivanka, altering the influence on the president – his own form of so-called silent resistance – his so-called liberal values socially liberated, they have remained largely a derisory abstraction, with no impact on politics. Whatever that blank slate could think and feel, I wondered, as I watched Kushner stupidly at the door, handicapped, if only for a brief period, to continue his seemingly considerable and yet largely obscure role. in his life. Administration of the father-in-law. It was not even silent anymore. It was clearly silence.

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