The Greek fantasy of Medusa takes many kinds, however the commonest is that this: Medusa was a girl who, having angered the goddess Athena, was made right into a monster. Athena punished Medusa by turning her hair right into a writhing tangle of serpents, after which by guaranteeing that anybody who appeared into Medusa’s eyes could be turned to stone. In shaping their story of a gaze made violent, the creators of that early democracy had been prescient in regards to the man who has tried to destroy ours. Donald Trump’s head could also be lined in spray reasonably than snakes, however he’s a Medusa all the identical, reconfigured for the age of mass media: When you take a look at him, your destiny is already sealed.
Final evening, the forty fifth president grew to become inmate quantity P01135809 of Georgia’s Fulton County Jail. Trump had his mug shot taken. It was shared with the general public. We appeared, in fact. And he was ready for our gaze: hair, make-up, angle, pose. Within the portrait—it’s a portrait, ultimately—Trump glares instantly into the digicam. He seethes. He glowers. He turns in a studied efficiency. Photographs like this are sometimes workout routines in enforced humility. Trump’s is a show of ongoing energy. He treats his mug shot as our menace.
The general public imagined the image lengthy earlier than we truly noticed it, spending months earlier than yesterday discussing and anticipating it. The preemptive consideration was fueled by the truth that the primary president to be indicted has additionally been indicted, at this level, 4 instances. Every new authorized continuing has impressed extra discuss of the picture: Would there be a mug shot? What wouldn’t it appear to be? What wouldn’t it really feel like, to see it? The Fulton County sheriff promised that his workplace would do its half to supply the solutions. “We’ll have a mug shot prepared for you,” he mentioned, like a paparazzo making his assurances to TMZ.
As soon as it grew to become clear that the officer would make good on the promise, the hypothesis became giddiness. Final evening, CNN led a countdown to Trump’s look on the Atlanta-area jail, its chyrons asserting when Trump’s airplane had departed for Georgia, when it had landed on the airport, and when its passengers had been deposited into the autos that may take them to the ability. Trump was given a motorcade, which made its method by way of town like a parade of lights and sirens. MSNBC shot all of it from above, utilizing the footage as B-roll whereas its commentators mentioned the belated satisfactions of justice.
Whilst Trump was held to account, then—whilst he was, in idea, introduced low—he was elevated. Final evening, as so many instances earlier than, viewers’ gazes had been directed Trump-ward. Medusa’s curse can also be the curse of anybody in her path: Regardless of the penalties, she compels us to look.
Within the course of, although, the occasion that ought to have been a present of accountability for Trump grew to become an act of concession to him. The everyday mug shot, normally taken after the topic’s surprising arrest, bestows its energy on the individuals on the opposite finish of the digicam. The alleged prison, in it, tends to be raveled, displaced, small. However Trump, trailed by the information cameras that confer his ubiquity, discovered a solution to flip the second’s historic that means—a former president, mug-shotted—into another alternative for model constructing. He might need smiled, as a few of his alleged co-conspirators did, making gentle of his authorized jeopardy. He might need assumed an expression of indignation, the higher to channel one in all his most well-liked personas: the harmless man, victimized.
However he did neither. As a substitute, he appears to be like straight on the viewer, seemingly incandescent with rage, taking the recommendation he has reportedly given to others: Carry out your anger. Flip it into your script. Make it into your risk. His menacing glare provides an identical stage course to the individuals who comply with him and do his bidding—each regardless of his disrespect for democratic processes and due to it.
Welcome to the age, then, of mug-shot rule. Trump, evidently happy along with his portrait, broadcast it on social media. (The platforms he used included X, previously often known as Twitter, which had as soon as banned him for spreading violent lies to its customers.) The picture he shared is doctored, in fact. Its background is stripped of the Fulton County seal, as if it had been a mere headshot for an actor in search of the function of “autocrat.” The caption Trump appended to the shot means that, on this elemental authorized doc, questions of legality are inappropriate. And it makes an attempt to show the language of the accusation towards itself. (“ELECTION INTERFERENCE,” it says, baselessly suggesting that the indictment is its personal try to intervene with the outcomes of the 2020 election. “NEVER SURRENDER!” it provides, making use of the identical tactic to the photograph that existed exactly due to Trump’s give up.)
Mug photographs have lengthy been used to make political messages: See, for instance, the reserving pictures of John Lewis, of Jane Fonda, of Tom DeLay. Trump’s model, although, is much less a chunk of wordless rhetoric than it’s a reminder to all who see it of the risk embodied by a vengeful Trump. One of many logistical functions of the mug shot is to create a visible report of the arrested particular person ought to they be accused of committing one other crime in a while. Trump’s reserving photograph is, in that method, a symbolic gesture—we would have liked no additional documentation of essentially the most inescapable face on the earth—but additionally one thing of an omen. It will by no means be over, it suggests. That face, with all its risks, will solely turn into tougher to keep away from. Trump, reportedly, orchestrated the logistics of final evening’s give up in order that its melodramas would play out on prime time.
Because the picture dropped final evening—simply earlier than 9 p.m.—the Fox host Jesse Watters requested his visitor, Ned Ryun of the conservative political-training group American Majority, to touch upon its that means. Ryun complied, discussing the photograph as proof of Trump’s political persecution by the executive state and decreasing the info gathered within the indictment to mere political gamesmanship. The one applicable response, he prompt, could be for Republicans to counter with their very own indictments.
“You’re saying Republicans ought to promise mug photographs of Democrats,” Watters mentioned.
“A hundred percent,” got here the reply.
Sean Hannity started his Fox present with the identical concept, as he broadcast Trump’s portrait to his viewers. “You’re looking at Joe Biden—oh, I’m sorry, Donald Trump’s—official mug shot,” the host mentioned. He paused for dramatic impact earlier than clarifying the purpose: “Joe Biden can be quickly sufficient anyway.”
