Trump and his supporters love mug shots because they are a symbol of honor
Trump’s First Presidential Mug Shot: Innocence, Prejudice, and Charges in the Era of 2020 Election Presidency
After the photo was public, Trump’s booking photo was placed on T-shirts, mugs and koozies. It inspired the latest addition to Trump’s campaign. And it even triggered a viral social media challenge where Trump supporters superimposed their face onto his photo.
Alone, the photograph is nothing to call home about. Were it not infused with so much meaning—his is the first presidential mug shot in history—it would barely register as remarkable (in fairness, he set the bar pretty high during his presidency. Remember the orb?!). Its aesthetic are similar to the one of Trump. The furrowed brows. The chromatic cloud of hair. That unyielding glare, his eyes like darts, in search of a target. The darkness is in full view, but the camera can’t take proper light.
“There’s nothing like the scale of what’s going on — a politician of Trump’s stature who’s using the scandal to such political benefit,” said William Howell, a political science professor at the University of Chicago.
That is what the mug shot makes clear. Whether Georgia district attorney Fanni Willis can make her case or not, the mug shot implies an air of criminality. There will be people who will call that implication into question. They’ll say it’s unfair. They’ll label it a witch hunt again. For others, it validates what they already believe to be true: In his loss to President Joe Biden, he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and now he must go on trial to prove otherwise. The defendants are expected to be in court next week. The court of public opinion will be watching.
Most people get mug shots during bad days in their lives. The internet makes it possible for those images to last forever if someone pays to take them down.
Arrest images are often used by certain groups. In a study done in 2021, the Global Strategy Group found mug shots were used in 45% of cases involving black defendants, compared to 8% of cases involving white defendants.
Mug shots are usually harmful – for Trump and his supporters, it’s a badge of honor, writes Mary Angela Bock
“Folks without power, they’re criminalized. They don’t have much say about it. But folks who have a lot of power get to redefine that picture,” said Mary Angela Bock, a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
The life-altering effect of mug shots has been found to be largely impervious to the power and resources of elected officials. Take former Texas Gov. Rick Perry. When he was accused of abusing his power as governor, he was arrested and taken to jail. His super PAC sold T-shirts with his mug shot for 25 bucks, after the incident turned into a political rally.
“Politicians know that it’s about the moment, and they know that the picture isn’t important.” So they can change the meaning of that moment to match their needs, said Bock, who conducted research on the mug shot.
Trump has long portrayed himself as an anti-hero — an outsider willing to call out the failures and corruption in Washington. He and his supporters believe that they have been unfairly treated, according to the indictments.
He said that the narrative he is peddling is that the justice system has been used against him by his political opponent, and that the government has been hijacked by people who don’t believe in the rule of law.
Source: Mug shots are usually harmful. For Trump and his supporters, it’s a badge of honor
Donald Trump’s Fauxtilization on Twitter: A Way to Help a Black Star Become a Better President in the Confronting the Problems of Elections
Donald Trump’s mug shot may help him in the presidential race, at least financially. In fact, his campaign has already made money selling merchandise with a fake Trump mug shot.
On Thursday, Trump made his first post on X in more than two years with a mugshot along with a message.
Some of his fans posted fake mug shots of themselves on the social media site. Among those who participated was Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
They’re going to do everything in their power to support him through fires. It’s that the fires are only going to strengthen the bonds between them,” he said.
Donald Trump’s latest tweet: an original broadcast of the first real estate deal maker. And his first television appearance in “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”
The first time I encountered Donald Trump was on my TV screen. It happened in the episode of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”, Will Smith’s popular sitcom that ran on NBC for six seasons. There was nothing particularly memorable about the episode or Trump’s appearance in it—he played a relatively tame version of himself—but for much of my early life this was how I made sense of him. As a real estate deal maker. A reality TV star. And the 45th president of the United States. Then and now, Trump best communicates through the medium of images.
The latest transmission from his visual onslaught began making rounds on the internet last Thursday, just past the 8pm Eastern primetime hour, when Georgia’s Fulton County Jail released his mug shot to the public. It has since been described as one of the most historic images of our time. And rightly so. There isn’t a parallel for it in the visual world. In every sense, it is a Trump original.
