the four historic clichés of a campaign of all excesses – L’Express

They are everywhere. Printed in the press, shown on television, broadcast on the Internet, published on social networks. The images are impactful and infinitely shareable. So stay. In showrunner warned, Donald Trump understood this well. The now three-time candidate for the supreme office is bubbling with inventiveness when it comes to exploiting the power of the Internet.

So, six days before the election, here is the Republican billionaire all smiles, an orange warning vest on his back, climbing into a garbage truck bearing the “Trump 2024” logo. “This truck is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden,” mocks Donald Trump, leaning proudly on the window of his “garbage truck”. A snub from the billionaire to the tenant of the White House, who clumsily treated Republican voters as “trash” at the start of the week.

Successful communication operation? “Political commentators insist that no. The fact remains that all the news channels have interrupted their programs to show Trump in his truck,” notes Françoise Coste, professor of American civilization at the University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès. From burlesque scenes to historical shots, the 78-year-old is a master of personal branding. As the race for the White House enters its home stretch, L’Express looks back on four photos that made the Republican candidate’s campaign.

The “photo of the year”: the Mugshot

Whether to exploit the blunders of his opponents or transform his weaknesses into strengths, the cantor of MAGA (for Make America Great Again, campaign slogan used by Ronald Reagan during the 1980 presidential campaign and taken up by Donald Trump) uses images as real political weapons. At the beginning of August 2023, Donald Trump was indicted for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Two weeks passed before his mugshot was made public by the authorities of the state of Georgia.

In a few minutes, the famous mugshot of a stern looking Donald Trump goes around the world map. On the web, Internet users are going wild. His supporters vituperated, denouncing the “judicial harassment” he suffered. Never has a president of the world’s leading power been photographed in prison. In 1872, Ulysses Grant was arrested for speeding. But as the story goes The Economistthe 18th President of the United States managed to escape a cliché that would have made headlines in the press.

A century and a half later, it was the accused himself who published the photo on social networks. And to add power to the gesture, the businessman chose X, which he had boycotted after his account was suspended in January 2021 following the assault on the capitol. “It’s a visual that reinforces the image that Trump wants to embody: that of a resister against the system,” explains Françoise Coste. His campaign team hastened to launch the production of thousands of derivative products plastered with the judicial ID photo.

The photo for the story: Butler’s raised fist

If THE mugshot constitutes “the photo of the year”, according to the formula of New York Times, that of July 13 takes on a completely different dimension. At the foot of the platform on which Donald Trump sits when a bullet passes through the top of his right ear, Evan Vucci, photographer for Associated Presscaptures a moment that could “define and shape history”, headlines the British conservative newspaper The Spectator.

The image is striking, with rare visual power. The contrast between the bloodied face and the raised fist of the candidate, above which an American flag flies, gives the photo an air of staging worthy of the greatest Hollywood filmmakers. For the candidate’s team, not transforming the cliché into a political propaganda tool would be a strategic mistake, a missed opportunity to reinforce the image of a threatened, hunted, cornered Donald Trump.

“In the photo, Donald Trump appears strong, combative, the opposite of the image conveyed by Biden in the weeks preceding the assassination attempt,” notes Françoise Coste. The historian deciphers what she perceives as a staging of the instant: “In this event which could have cost him his life, Trump had the instinct to stand up, to show his bloodied face, to raise his fist , to shout ‘fight'”.

The cool photo: “McDonald’s Trump”

But Donald Trump is not only fond of warlike displays. Others are lighter. A McDonald’s restaurant was privatized on October 20 so that he could play, for a few photos, a waiter from the famous fast-food chain. Under the gaze of the cameras, the billionaire puts on an apron, prepares cones of fries, and even serves orders at drive to… members of his campaign.

A communications operation with a triple political aim. First: target Kamala Harris. At the beginning of October, the vice-president claimed to have worked during her studies in a restaurant of the fast-food chain in the early 1980s. A lie, swears Donald Trump, who jokes after a quarter of an hour: “I have now worked fifteen minutes more than Kamala, since she has never worked here.”

Second objective: to give the impression of proximity to the popular electorate. “The vast majority of Americans who regularly go to McDonald’s come from disadvantaged classes and ethnic minorities, an electorate that it targets,” explains Françoise Coste. Finally: leave with a stack of photographs to feed your social networks, while “looking away from your program full of unpopular measures that could be off-putting,” adds the historian.

The AI ​​image: Taylor Swift and her – fake – endorsement

Donald Trump or the art of making his opponents’ assets his own. Kamala Harris, like millions of American students, worked in a McDonald’s? He shouts at fake newsand reverses the roles by disguising himself as a waiter from the fast food chain. Taylor Swift set to support Kamala Harris? Same pattern: he denies, makes sure to turn the ad to his advantage, even going so far as to disguise the image of the platinum-selling singer.

Thus, the Republican candidate published, in mid-August, a photo of herself generated by artificial intelligence, which urged Internet users to cast a Donald Trump ballot next November: “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump” (Taylor expects you to vote for Donald Trump). Last September, Lauric Henneton, author of the preface to the biography Taylor Swift, The Story of a Phenomenon (Editions Hors Collection, 2024), explained in the columns of L’Express that the misappropriation of his image had precipitated Taylor Swift’s support for Kamala Harris.

A endorsement two months before the election which will not, however, erase the image seen by several million people. “Trump’s strength certainly lies in the fact of having understood more than his adversaries that images were often much more effective than the unfolding of political programs, or the explanation of projects on this or that subject,” explains Françoise Coste.

A few days before November 5, it is impossible to say whether these visuals will have had any influence on the outcome of the election. But one thing is certain, according to the specialist: when it comes to political communication, the two candidates are not fighting on equal terms. “Seriously, can you imagine Kamala Harris in a garbage truck? The press would destroy her.”