Yes, toward 7:30 EST time Thursday, I slid over to Twitter, whoops, X, and waited, monitoring the chatter. Waited for Donald Trump's mugshot to ... I almost said "hit the wires," but that would be dating myself. Waiting for it to drop. Be flung into the aether. The atmosphere was festive. Everyone seemed to be there. Sex columnist Dan Savage, who 20 years ago transformed former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum's last name into the term for a frothy byproduct of anal sex, offered a new, amusing definition for "mugshot" that might be useful when describing certain pornographic tableaux.
A fake Trump mugshot was shared as real, then rapidly withdrawn.
Why the huge interest? Aren't we all tired of him? Yet there we were. I suppose I could carry on about fascination with the physical body of the tyrant, his image, hewn into limestone in Egypt 4,000 years ago. I've already compared the Former Guy's curled lip to Ozymandias, the pharaoh Shelley's imagination saw peeking from the shifting sand: Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command (that post running in June, 2014, when his name defaced Trump Tower, a full year before he announced his vanity run for the presidency)
Of course, lately Trump's command, hot or cold, sets only a dwindling band of flunkies into motion. The Washington Post reports that "scores" of supporters turned out around the Fulton County Jail for the arrival of their Orange Lord, then looked at their own photos and changed that to "a few dozen." (I would have be satisfied with "a few.")
I don't think paying attention to Trump needs to be defended at this point. The man is the front runner for the 2024 Republican Party presidential nominee. His four-year misrule of our country is still a fresh memory, an open wound. Justice for the Jan. 6 insurrection has not reached him. Yet. Those saying ignore Trump and he'll go away have seriously misunderstood the situation, and are as detached from our unfortunate reality as his fans are. We can't ignore him. He's never going away, not until he finally occupies his hole in hell — upside down, I hope, the way Dante envisioned the resting place for Boniface VIII, his flaming feet kicking in protest.
Frankly, now the interest is more pathological than practical. There isn't much choice in the matter on either side. It's an obsession. Forty percent of the country looks at him with the head-cocked adoration of a dog awaiting a treat. And 40 percent look at him with the focused anxiety of a beaten dog tracking a stick. Either way, the result is the same. Not to forget 20 percent — and this is just nuts — who can't seem to make up their minds. They seem worst of all. Really? Scratching your head and trying to puzzle this mystery out, are ya?
Maybe they're just awaiting more information. That lone bit of new data to push them over the edge.
Like his stated height and weight, which broke before the picture was revealed. 6'3 and 215 pounds. Much glee over that — the man weighs 260 pounds if he weighs an ounce. And last time he was arraigned, in April, he was 6'2 and 240 pounds. So gained an inch while losing 25 pounds.
Why not? To me it was barely worth an eye roll. You mean to suggest that Donald Trump is lying?!? Oh my!
The mugshot was finally released, and passed along immediately. "He looks broken," Scott Dworkin suggested. "He looks like Satan," my wife said. In between those extremes, a crushed loser and the slick Prince of Darkness (can he be both? I'd vote for both) every possible opinion poured forth.
"Trumps mugshot where he looks like a pissed off and angry badass is an iconic historic photo," tweeted Ted Cruz, whose entire reputation now consists of salaaming at Trump's feet, degrading himself like a zonked out meth addict on Lower Wacker Drive, wearing a strap t-shirt as a dress. To me, that is the saddest, most tragic aspect of the entire Trump tragedy. He can't help himself — that's who he is. But people like Ted Cruz knew better. And look at the choices they made, the choices they make. It boggles the mind.
Of course Trump immediately fundraised with it — "O yet defend me friends, I am but hurt!" — using it as his first Tweet, whoops, message on X, in more than two years.
The dimwit media noted the historic nature — a president's mugshot — as if history weren't made daily with each new Trump twist. He didn't look any more awful than normal, and indeed had a certain airbrushed Big Brother is Watching You quality.
That was my takeaway. If he's reelected — and he might be — I could see him vindictively putting that photo on postage stamps and American currency. That is the photo that will be rendered enormous, 50 feet hall, in the newly renamed Trump Square at 42nd Street in New York, and will gaze from posters affixed to every wall in every town, along with some apt slogan. "HAVE YOU GIVEN TODAY?" I suppose we'll get used to it. Look what we've adjusted ourselves to already.