Inside this Fulton County jail, Donald J. Trump, 6-foot-3 and weighing 215 pounds, has emerged as a new protest figure.
His mugshot is the stuff of Warhol: an instantly iconic Americana that will be replicated and repurposed for decades to come.
Immediately, his enemies gave him the greatest gift imaginable.
This image transformed a multi-billionaire former president into a folk hero, a renegade, an outlaw.
And America loves nothing more than outlaws, as Trump knows.
Within hours, he was selling official image-stamped merchandise: mugshot coffee mugs ($25), cozy beers ($15 for a 2-pack), t-shirts ($34) and stickers for bumpers ($12 for a set of 2), all featuring the same logo. with the slogans “Never surrender”.
Guess what we’ll all have in our stockings this Christmas? These trinkets make great gifts for the Trump lover and even better gifts for the Trump hater.
First American president to submit to a photo ID? Be careful what you wish for.
To laugh at this photo is to misunderstand it. Georgia has just crystallized Trump’s campaign message with a royalty-free image that will earn him the nomination.
Fani Willis, the Georgia district attorney, has surely been feeling quite self-satisfied for the past two weeks. We’ve all seen his smug press conference announcing Trump’s indictment.
But this photo — utterly unnecessary, avoided in Trump’s other three indictments, intended to humiliate and degrade — opened up a whole new revenue stream and re-energized Trump’s already bigoted base.
Just like Fulton County’s explanation.
His mugshot is the stuff of Warhol: an instantly iconic Americana that will be reproduced and repurposed for decades to come.
Within hours, he was selling official image-stamped merchandise: mugshot coffee mugs ($25), cozy beers ($15 for a 2-pack), t-shirts ($34) and stickers for bumpers ($12 for a set of 2), all featuring the same logo. with the slogans “Never surrender”.
“Unless someone tells me otherwise,” Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat said in early August, “we follow our normal practices…regardless of your status.” We will have a photo ready for you.
Please. No one believes this photo isn’t politically motivated. Donald Trump is one of the most photographed people on the planet. It’s not like he’s going to give up his bail.
It’s really mystifying: those who hate Trump, who know him intimately, still don’t understand him!
On Friday morning, hours after the impeachment, talking heads on CNN lamented reports that Trump and his team had thought about the optics of the mug shot — what his expression should convey, his bearing, what colors he should wear.
Of course they did. They would be fools not to. Dressed in red, white and blue, Trump faces the camera, his chin down but inflected, his face displaying pure rage.
It’s perfect. He expresses everything that Trump clearly wants: he is a patriot, a political martyr. He won’t tolerate that and neither will America. It is a travesty that Trump will avenge.
Try to destroy it and it will only come out stronger.
Those who welcome Trump’s impeachment here — and I’m one of them — should miss this photo. It elevates Trump beyond politics, into the realm of pure pop culture. It’s the apotheosis of his reality TV approach to campaigning, rivalry, the most outrageous talk imaginable, and somehow, even if he looks like he’s losing, getting out yet another another rabbit out of his hat.
Indicted on RICO charges? There’s a new Teflon Don in town.
This image transformed a multi-billionaire former president into a folk hero, a renegade, an outlaw. And America loves nothing more than outlaws, as Trump knows.
“Unless someone tells me otherwise,” Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat (above) said in early August, “we follow our normal practices…regardless of your status. We will have a photo ready for you.
Trump doesn’t just have the lure of transgression: he’s the ultimate transgressor. “Grab ’em by the p•••y,” “I like people who haven’t been caught,” “Very good people on both sides”: nothing brings Trump down. This photo won’t either.
This is where the left continually gets it wrong. They think that Trump is not serious, that he is not cunning and that he has no intelligence.
Oh, but he does. Trump is a brawler in Brioni, politics’ ultimate professional fighter, a nimble adaptor to the post-television era. He sits down with fellow insider-turned-stranger Tucker Carlson for a fireside chat — without the fire — about Elon Musk’s X, counter-programming the first GOP presidential debate on Fox, correctly predicting the outcome final.
“We’ll get bigger audiences using this crazy forum you’re using,” Trump told Carlson, “than probably the debate, our competitors.”
Fox had 12.8 million viewers. Compare that to the Trump-Tucker interview, which got nearly 200 million eyes.
As slippery as that metric might be — X only counts a few seconds of streaming as a “view” — Trump knew what the headline would be: he crushed Fox.
It was. And nothing the participating Republican candidates did or said during that formal debate dominated the next day’s news cycle, as Trump wisely decided to stand for his impeachment the same day, 24 hours before. the deadline.
The decision sucked up all the post-debate oxygen, as network and cable news out of Georgia breathlessly reported — all day — until Trump arrived a little after 7 p.m. . He was supposed to report at 4 p.m.
Trump doesn’t just have the lure of transgression: he’s the ultimate transgressor. “Grab ’em by the p•••y,” “I like people who haven’t been caught,” “Very good people on both sides”: nothing brings Trump down. This photo won’t either.
Trump is a brawler in Brioni, politics’ ultimate professional fighter, a nimble adaptor to the post-television era.
Nothing is an accident.
We, our children and our children’s children will see this photo reinterpreted on the walls of museums, on the posters of dormitories, on the T-shirts that make him an anti-hero until the end of time. It’s as instantly iconic as Jackie Kennedy in his pillbox hat, Muhammad Ali in the ring, Elvis in the White House.
There’s a reason some celebrities, including the late prince, faked their own arrests, their own photos. A famous face stripped of all dignity becomes the literal representation not only of prosecution but of persecution.
And it hits directly at Trump’s base, whose fervor towards him is religious. But unlike Jesus Christ, this former world leader will not turn the other cheek. He will fight back — not for himself, Trump says, but for his supporters.
As he told the crowd in late June, following his first two indictments: “In 2016, I said: I am your voice. Today I add: I am your warrior. I am your judge. And for those who were wrong and betrayed, I am your punishment. . . I consider this a great mark of courage. I am charged for you.
Trump doubled his impeachment after his Georgia impeachment on Thursday.
“What happened here is a travesty of justice,” he said. “We didn’t do anything wrong, I didn’t do anything wrong and everyone knows that. I’ve never had such support.
Underestimate him at your peril, Georgia prosecutors. Enjoy your momentary joy for now, leftist media. Because this photo and the ensuing trial – which will no doubt be televised, saving an entertainment industry crippled by two ongoing strikes – will benefit Trump.
Greatly.
