One for the History Books: Donald Trump's Mug Shot
A camera clicks. In a fraction of a second, the shutter opens and then closes, freezing forever the image in front of it.
When the camera clicked inside a jail in Atlanta, Georgia, on August 24, it both created and documented a historic moment in American life. There was a former president of the United States, for the first time in history, under arrest and photographed in the sort of frame more commonly associated with drug dealers or drunken drivers.
In the photo, Trump glares at the camera with a gray background behind him. Some of the 18 others charged with him in Georgia smiled in their mug shots. Not Trump. He looks as if he's staring at an enemy.
Trump facing charges is by now a familiar sight of 2023 — but this is different.
Charged with trying to overturn Georgia's 2020 election results, Trump, like all Americans, is innocent until proven guilty. But the mug shot has an extra emotional and cultural punch.
A mug shot is a symbol of the criminal justice system and of lost freedom. It permanently preserves one of the worst days of a person's life. It must be particularly strange to a man born into privilege, who rose to become the most powerful figure in the world.
Trump is unlikely to treat the mug shot as a moment of shame as he seeks a second term in the White House.
In fact, Trump's campaign had already created a fake mug shot, months before he was photographed in Georgia, and used it for fundraising. For $36, anyone can buy a T-shirt with a fake booking photo of Trump and the words "not guilty."
Now they have a real one to work with. Within minutes of the mug shot's release, Trump's campaign used it in a fundraising appeal on its website, advertising a new T-shirt with the image. And this quote: "This mugshot will forever go down in history as a symbol of America's defiance of tyranny."
The mug shot represents a unique and powerful moment in American politics, and will certainly appear in future generations' history books.
