At first glance, the former American president was in a bad position. Accused of having tried to manipulate the results of the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump was forced to submit to a mugshot, the first of a former American president. A source of humiliation that turned into a political communication stunt. Result: the “mugshot” becomes a formidable marketing weapon for the 2024 presidential election.
Head slightly tilted forward, very hard, even aggressive gaze, as a sign of defiance: the portrait of the 45th President of the United States, immortalized for history by the services of the sheriff of Atlanta, has been around the world since Thursday evening. The tour de force: in a few hours, the businessman went from the status of accused to that of martyr. As soon as the legal cliché was made public, his supporters presented the former Republican president as a “hero”, the victim of persecution and a “witch hunt” orchestrated by the Democrats of Joe Biden.
In the American media, the tendencies are multiple according to the political sensitivities. If the New York Times, a newspaper classified on the left in the United States, preferred to reduce the photo to the size of a medallion to illustrate an article, other media have made a big deal out of it. The tabloid New York Post, owned by conservative tycoon Rupert Murdoch, made its front page on Friday, with the photo taking up a full page. Untitled. On right-wing Fox News, Donald Trump said Georgia officials “insisted” on a photo being taken at Fulton County Jail, and it was “not a pleasant feeling, especially when you did nothing wrong.”
T-shirts, caps, mugs…
For its part, the “Trump 2024” campaign team immediately surfed on the “mug shot” effect by launching an appeal to every American “patriot”. This statement claims that “the shadow state is trying to make President Trump public enemy number one in order to dare to challenge the corrupt ruling class of Washington”, and denounces an “official court photo which presents him as a criminal in the eyes of of the whole world.” His supporters are demanding 47 dollars in contribution for a new fundraiser for the Republican candidate, well ahead of the polls for his party’s primaries in 2024. In exchange, everyone is offered a white t-shirt printed with the photo of identity under which the slogan “NEVER SURRENDER!” (“NEVER SURRENDER!”).
The former Republican president’s campaign apparatus is not one to miss a marquee opportunity, especially when the latter faces huge legal bills following his four indictments. On the Republicans official website, there are merchandise of all kinds: the photo on t-shirts ($34), coffee mugs ($25), posters ($28) and bumper stickers ($12 for 2) . The instantly iconic photo “will forever be part of the iconography of life in this era,” Marty Kaplan, a professor at the University of Southern California, told The Associated Press.
The photo also marks the billionaire’s return to Twitter, renamed X by billionaire Elon Musk. His last post on this platform, once his favorite communication channel, was on January 8, 2021. He was banned from it after the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol in Washington, led by his supporters. This ban has since been lifted. Hashtags such as #TrumpMugshot and #OrangeIsTheNewOrange have started to gain popularity. The cliché of the ex-president is also diverted on social networks in humorous montages and memes, favorable or hostile. The phenomenon is such that some Republicans publish their own fake photos to ride the wave. Like the Republican elected to the House of Representatives, Marjorie Taylor Greene.
For Daniel Binns, head of the New York political marketing agency Interbrand, the diversion of the “mug shot” makes it an “extremely powerful” derivative of the Trump “brand”. The latter “can use everything that is said, everything that he is accused of and make it something that fits with the story he wants to tell”. For Miro Cernetig, who presents himself on X as a creator and developer of brands for companies, the “marketing stunt is brilliant, even if it can be crude”.