Five Key Impacts of History's Most Iconic Mugshot

Topic: Perspective

President Donald Trump’s other persecutors, such as Alvin Bragg, although willing to facilitate a corrupt agenda that undermines the time-honored American judicial tradition of impartiality, had enough common sense and situational awareness to do one thing - stop just short of making the 45^th President of the United States into a political martyr.  Enter Fani Willis, the corrupt and evidently obtuse District Attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, which administered a 2020 election that is apparently so pristinely run that they wouldn’t even show it off to the world with a full audit, canvass, and signature match.

Willis, rather than sticking to precedent, which has already been bad enough in the court of public opinion for the dictators on the left, couldn’t help herself.  In this author’s opinion, Willis has turned the tide in America, accelerating the game into the final minute of the fourth quarter to be won or lost decisively, by forcing the 45^thPresident to pose for a booking photo, or mugshot.

In 2016, the man pictured above became the first person elected U.S. President to have never held office or served as a military general, underscoring just how badly Americans were tired of business as usual.  The bureaucratic administrative state has responded to that choice with seven years of perpetual conflict and an increasingly aggressive war against those speaking out against public corruption, ranging from impeding Trump’s presidency with the Russia, Russia hoax, to multiple impeachments, to the current set of proceedings surrounding Trump’s efforts to remain in office following an election so corrupt, it defied more than 130 years of electoral trends, indicators, bellwethers, and predictors, with countless and still mounting examples of manipulation down to the lowest levels of election administration.

Trump’s symbolic mugshot is likely to have the following five impacts:

I.          America’s Rubicon Moment

From National Geographic:

On January 10, 49 B.C.E., General Julius Caesar entered Roman territory by crossing the Rubicon, a stream in what is now Northern Italy. In crossing the Rubicon, Caesar began a civil war that signaled the end of the Roman Republic. Julius Caesar was a very popular military and political leader who expanded the borders of the Roman Republic through what are today France, Spain, and the island of Britain. Caesar’s popularity and independence created tension between him and other elected officials in Rome. The Rubicon was a shallow river that served as a boundary between Rome and its provinces. Caesar crossed from a part of Gaul, where he was serving as governor. It was against the law to cross into Roman territory with an army, and Caesar knew this—he knew he was starting a civil war. He may have quoted one of his favorite plays when crossing the stream—Alea iacta est, the die is cast. (Romans were familiar with throwing (casting) dice as a game of chance.) The Roman civil war that followed lasted five years. It ended with Caesar being named Rome’s “dictator for life.” Years later, the Roman Republic dissolved and the Roman Empire emerged—with Caesar’s adopted son, Augustus, serving as its first emperor.

Caesar’s crossing with an Army makes me think of Trump’s advance to Fulton County from New Jersey, and once there, through the highways, intersections, and neighborhoods filled with black citizens who have been abused by the Democrat Party since that party’s inception in the 1820s.  Trump knew he was going to be booked and produce what may end up being the most famous photograph of all time, and the imagery of his motorcade advancing on camera seemed like a visual record of a historic advance that would galvanize the support of the people in his defense.

While not supportive of violence or kinetic retaliation, I have no doubt that this moment and opportunity was anticipated, planned for, and will now be used in an appeal to the American people to wake up and see what this land of liberty has now become.

II.         Instantly Iconic

Trump’s mugshot has a major cultural impact, much like the famous mugshots of many Civil Rights figures (some universally respected, others respected on the left). 

He wasn’t just making things up when he said, “I’ll gladly take these slings and arrow for you,” and even though the case against him in Georgia is weak, the photo itself is so iconic that none can deny that Trump’s major offense was humiliating a corrupt, entitled, and cowardly political class to the point that they’ve resorted to third world tactics to prevent his reemergence.  Trump will now spend the next 14 months driving home the point that he was correct in assessing himself as so potentially transformational that he had to be targeted as such.

III.        The Republican Primary is Over

Richard Baris, one of America’s most accurate pollsters and data men, reports that only 60% of self-identified Republicans would vote for the Republican nominee in a General Election if Donald Trump were to be kept off the ballot next November.  Trump already has, by Baris’s estimate, 13 million votes that he alone possesses (Trump or bust), and Trump being withheld from the ballot would account for at least 15 million more lost votes.  The Republican Party would find itself fortunate to come up with 45 million votes and would be annihilated at all levels of government, bringing about a demise like that of the Whigs and the emergence of something new, which would take decades we don’t have to turn into something impactful thanks to all the manipulation present in America’s elections.  Willis has also guaranteed instant tens of millions in funds to the Trump campaign, which instantly monetized the mugshot on all sorts of souvenirs and apparel.

What did Trump’s tone-deaf main antagonist do on that grim day?  Well, he played baseball in stump speech attire at the Field of Dreams, of course.  Americans of every creed, color, race, and ethnicity, and their global counterparts watched an American president surrender for a mugshot for daring to contest a corrupt election, and instead of having a potential alternative assuage the fears of potential voters as to how long this political persecution will persist in one of the three main branches of government, they received a photo op.

Most of the Republican political establishment remained mum or listlessly neutral on the topic, as well, affirming the party’s commitment to wresting back control from the annoying and persistent grassroots voter who expects accountability for years of government corruption, malfeasance, and dereliction on our borders, broken elections, reckless spending, and foreign policy, all green-lighted while ignoring a pervasive and threatening police state.

IV.        Just This Once

I never understood, as a fervent anti-Democrat, why poor, working class, minority voters voted so heavily for Democrat candidates who promised the world, but always wound up keeping them in poverty.  Once I observed how the Republican Party treated Trump in 2015, and how politicians like Mitt Romney, who I once supported, stepped up to oppose him in 2016, I understood.  The Beltway-style Republican is faker than a three-dollar bill, pushing only fiscal minutiae and muddled talk about values and principles that can never be implemented with the current level of corruption present in our national seat of power, and such seats scattered about the country.

Even in the 2020 quasi-election, Trump’s monstrous gains with minorities were evident in South Florida, Texas, Hawaii, and even Southern California and New York City.  Up until the tallies in the Industrial Midwest were diluted with electile dysfunction, Trump was reported to be receiving the votes of 30% of black men in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania.  Trump is the only candidate in the Republican field with widespread minority appeal, and now, thanks to Willis’s folly, Trump is now the most relatable Republican in modern political history and the equivalent of a professional wrestling heel to those who otherwise might not support a GOP nominee.  This offense committed by Willis and her ilk strikes the broad majority of Americans as unjust, ill-intentioned, and a looming threat to anyone who speaks up – which brings us to the final point:

V.         Who Is Next?

America doesn’t jail her presidents.  Americans understood that when President Gerald Ford pardoned former President Richard Nixon on September 8, 1974, and even Trump’s most ardent supporters understood the need to put off prosecuting Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama if doing so meant the MAGA agenda would languish.  Now that the veil is off, and President Trump is on the hot seat for simply contesting an election five out of eight Americans believe was tainted by fraud, it could be anyone.

Pray for America and pray for those willing to speak truth in a time that rewards lies.  We are fortunate to live in a time of transformation, and with God’s help, we will get where we need to go.  President Trump is the man in the arena, and it is no longer the critic that counts.