Trump s mugshot defines modern US politics

Belligerence and hostility: Trump’s mugshot defines modern US politics
Story by Chris McGreal in New York

Mugshots define eras.

Bugsy Siegel peering malevolently from beneath his fedora in a 1928 booking photo summed up the perverse romance of gangsters in the prohibition age.

Nearly half a century later, mugshots of David Bowie, elegantly dressed but dead-eyed after his arrest for drug possession, and a dishevelled Janis Joplin, detained for “vulgar and indecent language”, spoke to the shock waves created by 1960s counterculture.

Related: Trump’s jail spectacle is historic, but it won’t harm him politically

Now comes what Donald Trump Jr described as “the most iconic photo in the history of US politics” before the booking picture of his father glaring into the camera was even taken. But whether deeply divided Americans view the first ever mugshot of a former president as that of a gangster or a rock star is very much in the politics of the beholder.

Trump’s hostility shines through as he turns his eyes up toward the camera above him and in his taut, downturned mouth as he is booked into the Fulton county jail on charges of trying to steal the 2020 presidential election. Dressed in a blue suit, white shirt and red tie, he makes no attempt to put on a smile like some of his co-defendants in their mugshots.

The picture does not flatter but it does convey the message many of Trump’s supporters want to hear – belligerence.

David Bowie’s mugshot conveyed a more ebullient but inebriated time. Photograph: Donaldson Collection/Getty Images

© Provided by The Guardian

The six-pointed star of the Fulton county sheriff’s office badge and the name of the sheriff, Patrick Labat, sits in the top left hand corner of the picture. But some will be disappointed that Trump is not seen in the classic pose holding a board in front of his chest with his name and date of arrest.

For all that, the former president’s supporters are already embracing the booking photo as a badge of honour and defiance. It will be held up as evidence that their man will not give up the fight against a system his followers see as ever more determined to bring him down and prevent him returning to the White House.

Far-right congresswoman Lauren Boebert led the way with a tweet proclaiming: “Not all heroes wear capes.”

The president’s detractors, on the other hand, will see the booking photo as evidence that even a man who was once the most powerful person in the land cannot escape the might of the justice system. Some will welcome anything that makes him look even a little bit more criminal as a confirmation that sooner or later he is going to prison. The accused may be presumed innocent until a plea or a jury says otherwise but mugshots can have a way of conveying guilt.

For Trump though, the picture is likely to prove yet another money spinner. The mugshot’s rapid appearance on T-shirts, posters and, well, mugs glorifying a martyred Trump can be expected.

As it happens, an official Trump fundraising website is already selling T-shirts and coffee mugs with an image manipulated to appear as if the former president is in a booking photo with height markers behind him and a board in front with his name and the date, “04 04 2023” – the day he was indicted in New York on fraud charges.

Merchandise with the real thing is likely to sell briskly given the enthusiasm with which the former president’s supporters now treat each public humiliation as an accomplishment.

Two impeachments and four sets of indictments, from financial fraud to a slew of charges over the 2020 election, have done little to damage Trump’s standing among the true believers, and have only bolstered his run for the Republican presidential nomination. Such is the strength of that belief that a recent CBS poll showed Trump voters trust him more than their own family members and religious leaders.

Ordinary Americans have already got creative in response to the flood of indictments by mocking up pictures of the former president in an orange jump suit a la Guant;namo prison and in printing T-shirts with Trump in various states of detention with slogans declaring “Trumped up charges”, “Guilty AF”,“Guilty of winning” and “Legend”.

There will be plenty who will challenge Don Jr’s claim that the mugshot has instantly become the most iconic photo in US political history. Pictures of John F Kennedy’s assassination or Martin Luther King Jr leading the march for freedom or a host of other historic moments will surely prove more enduring.

But as with the gangsters and rock stars, Trump’s booking photo may come to define an era – one of unusual political turmoil that has yet to resolve whether his next mugshot is as an inmate.

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'Emperor has no clothes': Trump mugshot explodes across the internet
Fulton County Jail records
August 24, 2023, 9:17 PM ET

Shortly after former President Donald Trump was arrested and booked at the Fulton County Jail for the Georgia election racketeering case, his mugshot was released to the public.

It was a significant moment; Trump has been indicted and booked three other times prior to this, but in all of those cases, one in New York and two in federal courts, the mugshot was not released — making this the first publicly available image in history of a former U.S. president being booked in jail.

Reactions to the image came swift and numerous on X, the platform previously known as Twitter.

Trump's allies, for their part, were quick to project defiance. "This is the photo that will win the 2024 Presidential election," posted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). "The American people will not stand for communism in America."

But others, including legal experts and commentators, had a different reaction.

"While the Trump mugshot is probably the most famous mugshot in American history…what a disgrace on the world stage for our country," posted former Mike Pence national security aide Olivia Troye, adding, "But it’s a big step again towards accountability…for the people and by the people."

Former Trump Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham posted, "I guarantee right now everyone on the Trump plane is telling him how tough, formidable & strong he looks. #TheEmperorHasNoClothes."

"Corruption colliding with consequences. #MugshotDay," posted former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi.

"I am become death, destroyer of political norms," posted MSNBC columnist Michael A. Cohen (no relation to the former president's one-time attorney and fixer.)