(Dobbs) The Picture That's Worth A Thousand Words
This tells us what to expect if Donald Trump is returned to office.
That mugshot.
What I wrote on Friday, the day it became an appalling piece of presidential history— the day Donald Trump’s campaign called it “a symbol of America’s defiance of tyranny”— was that it just looked like a symbol of humiliation to me.
But I’ve been rethinking that because I’ve been thinking about two of Trump’s more provocative proclamations this year. One was right after he formally announced that he is running for president again and told the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, “I am your retribution.” The other was three days after he was indicted in Washington for his part in the insurrection, when he threatened on his website, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”
Look at the mugshot. See if you don’t see what I see.
Humiliation, yes, that’s a part of the picture. Even the narcissist he is had to concede in an interview with Fox News, “It is not a comfortable feeling.” But of course the incurable liar couldn’t stop there. “It is not a comfortable feeling — especially when you’ve done nothing wrong.”
But there’s more in the mugshot than just Trump’s humiliation. There is intimidation. There is revenge. It is that combination of omens that ought to put a chill in the spine of every American who hasn’t been duped by Donald Trump. From what we know of the man, if he does make it back to the Oval Office, his first priorities won’t be immigration, infrastructure, or the IRS. He will focus on retaliation against his enemies. And that means everyone who is not his friend.
That’s why that menacing mugshot is more famous already than Al Capone’s…
… more famous than Saddam Hussein’s.
It’s also more profitable, already the mainstay of a new round of fundraising to put the man with the stone-cold stare back in the White House.
Trump kicked off a cascade of cash when he tweeted from his airplane after lifting off from Atlanta, “I walked into the lion’s den with one simple message on behalf of our entire movement: I WILL NEVER SURRENDER OUR MISSION TO SAVE AMERICA.” Some commentators constructively pointed out that he vowed to never surrender shortly after… um… surrendering. But beyond his taunting pledge, he also told his followers to open their wallets. Again. “Make a contribution to evict Crooked Joe Biden from the White House,” he wrote, “and SAVE AMERICA during this dark chapter in our nation’s history.”
Ka-ching. The money poured in. According to Politico, Trump had his best fund-raising day of this current presidential campaign. It’s worth highlighting, this was after his arrest. His diehard disciples sent in $4.18-million. Since then it has ticked up to more than $7-million, all after the mugshot was taken, making Trump’s haul since August 1st, the date of his insurrection indictment in Washington, something close to 20 million dollars. Politico says that’s more than half his total take in the entire first seven months after he announced his candidacy.
And it’s not just from donations, it’s from purchases. Clearly already on the boards before Trump even traveled to Atlanta, his campaign has put his mugshot on everything from coffee mugs to water bottles to t-shirts, everything up for sale, everything bearing that stone-cold stare.
Donald Junior got in on the act too, plastering merchandise with his father’s mugshot “to fight the tyranny & insanity we’re seeing before us,” and promising that “Unlike many, I won’t try to profit from this.”
If the campaign has its way, no one will profit from it except Trump. A guy named Chris LaCivita, who is helping run the campaign, put up his own tweet warning that the mugshot is Trump’s to market. He wrote ominously, and in the bullying style of his idol, “If you are a campaign, PAC, scammer and you try raising money off the mugshot of @realDonaldTrump and you have not received prior permission… WE ARE COMING AFTER YOU you will NOT SCAM DONORS.”
One thing Mr. LaCivita doesn’t seem to understand: the mugshot is not Trump’s property. It is owned, and was released, by the Fulton County Sheriff’s Department in Atlanta.
But whether others rip it off or not, the mugshot is not going away, and neither is Donald Trump, let alone the the millions of Americans who will never give up on the man.
Actually, Joe Biden did the best commentary of all on Trump’s mugshot. In California, heading home after his tour of fire-ravaged Maui, he was asked by a reporter if he’d seen the mugshot himself. “I did see it on television,” he answered, then left it to the rest of us to detect his cynicism. “Handsome guy.”
Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 37-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
Greg, In general, I agree with you--God forbid that he's elected in Nov '24.
But, while he'd poll (today) maybe 45M votes...unless dems don't show up, I could more readily see a dem trifecta taking the White House and both houses....giving Biden 2 years at least to pass limits on SCOTUS .....time will tell. If he grows a beard, will he look like Saddam?
The "so called" billionaire now resorts to hawking coffee mugs to pay his bills. What's wrong with this picture?