One image, one face, one American moment: The Donald Trump mug shot

The Associated Press ^ | August 25, 2023 | BY JONATHAN J. COOPER (D-AP)

[Oldeconomybuyer]

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 shutter blinked inside an Atlanta jail on Thursday, it both created and documented a tiny inflection point in American life. Captured for posterity, there was a former president of the United States, for the first time in history, under arrest and captured in the sort of frame more commonly associated with drug dealers or drunken drivers. The trappings of power gone, for that split second.

Left behind: an enduring image that will appear in history books long after Donald Trump is gone.

“It will be forever part of the iconography of being alive in this time,” said Marty Kaplan, a professor at the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Communications.

In the photo, Trump confronts the camera in front of a bland gray backdrop, his eyes meeting the lens in an intense glare. He’s wearing a blue suit, white shirt and red tie, his shoulders squared, his head tilted slightly toward the camera. The sheriff’s logo has been digitally added above his right shoulder.

Some of the 18 others charged with him in Georgia smiled in their booking photos like they were posing for a yearbook. Not Trump. His defiance is palpable, as if he’s staring down a nemesis through the lens.

“It is not a comfortable feeling — especially when you’ve done nothing wrong,” he later told Fox News Digital about the moment.

Never mind that Trump, like all Americans, is innocent until proven guilty in court; the mug shot, and all it connotes, packs an extra emotional and cultural punch.

A mug shot is a visceral representation of the criminal justice system, a symbol of lost freedom.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

All banana republics have a compliant press.

[FlingWingFlyer]

That’s GREAT AMERICAN MOMENT to you Trump hating Ass. Pressers.

[ConservativeInPA]

🤢 🤮

[OSHA]

“All banana republics have a compliant press. “

Most of the time they are firebombed and beaten to submission. Our “media” just rolls over for a belly rub.

[MrRelevant]

Trump wins again.... first tweet in years is his own mugshot..lol

[enumerated]

I’m glad he used that expression. He looks pissed off and he should be.

[skeeter]

The second the shutter closed will likely also herald the close of one political era and the beginning of another.

One the stooges at AP might not appreciate so much.

[V_TWIN]

JONATHAN J. COOPER.......D is for d!ck

[Tench_Coxe]

Well AP, you have your "mugshot". But you don't seem to be any happier.
Is it because, to paraphase Doc Holliday in 'Tombstone', you have a hole inside you can't ever fill, or somewhere in the reptilian part of your brain its dawning that perhaps you and your compatriots are sowing the wind?

[Gay State Conservative]

BANANA REPUBLIC

[NativeSon]

He get’s an “F” for Fag

[Jane Long]

The Mugshot Mug....

[ought-six]

Great photo. It is exactly the pose I had hoped he’d take. Defiant.

[Georgia Girl 2]

I read the whole article and I’m chuckling. This poor schmuck has no clue of what’s Happening but soon he will. 😆

[dead]

[V_TWIN]

J is for jagoff.

[mikelets456]

We are now a third world political nation.

[V_TWIN]

Little johnny redhead is probably still a virgin

[kenmcg]

The DJT mug shot, the icing on the cake that we are a full third world banana republic, while the so called opposition Republican Party stands mute.

[Cowgirl of Justice]

Exactly.

He is no billionaire - he is one of us.

He WILL be POTUS again.