The Art of the Mug Shot.

From "The Trump Mug Shot’s Art-Historical Lineage/Assessing the forty-fifth President’s Georgia photo op in the context of Da Vinci, Warhol, and a rogues’ gallery of accused criminals" (The New Yorker):

I must say that I appreciate things like this — more distanced, aesthetic takes on Trump. More please. Less heat. More coolness. 

"This was not a church service. It was worship for a new kind of congregation: a right-wing political movement powered by divine purpose..."

"... whose adherents find spiritual sustenance in political action. The Christian right has been intertwined with American conservatism for decades, culminating in the Trump era. And elements of Christian culture have long been present at political rallies. But worship, a sacred act showing devotion to God expressed through movement, song or prayer, was largely reserved for church. Now, many believers are importing their worship of God, with all its intensity, emotion and ambitions, to their political life.... 'What is refreshing for me is, this isn’t at all related to church, but we are talking about God,' said Patty Castillo Porter, who attended the Phoenix event... [One woman, Tami Jackson, said] 'This is a Jesus movement.... I believe God removed Donald for a time, so the church would wake up and have confidence in itself again to take our country back.'"

From "The Growing Religious Fervor in the American Right: ‘This Is a Jesus Movement’/Rituals of Christian worship have become embedded in conservative rallies, as praise music and prayer blend with political anger over vaccines and the 2020 election" by Elizabeth Dias and Ruth Graham (NYT).

Is this something new or is this how Americans generally behave? I tend to think the latter, but rather than musing on that topic, I just want to publish this quickly because I can see that I've got tags that will pull up whatever I've blogged about this sort of thing over the years.

"I was repulsed and even a little afraid (I could easily imagine that the homeowner belonged to a militia group) but also fascinated..."

"... perhaps because he plainly also wanted very much to connect, to declare himself, to put forth his vision as any storyteller would. It also seemed as though he wanted to make people laugh, or at least smile. Because, as the display evolved over time, it became clear that he wasn’t just putting up political signage; he was directing a subtly changing Kabuki entertainment for the neighborhood. Some days you’d go by and the white-guy doll would be wearing a scowling Trump mask; then he’d be himself again. Some days there’d be a huge Trump figure sitting in the driver’s seat of one of the vehicles out front; some days not. One day in the fall, an outer-space creature with glittering green eyes appeared beside the male doll, wearing a Trump 2020 hat; later, the alien returned from whence it came and was replaced by a benign Yoda type, who also supported Trump. A friend who stayed at our house while we were out of town for about a month told us that at one point she saw the male doll and the green-eyed alien embracing; she later said she wasn’t sure she really had seen this—which reminded me of my husband’s impression of the fist pulling back the flag. Something about the tableau actively engaged your imagination and made you think you saw things that weren’t there (or possibly were there, who knows—maybe the alien and the male doll did embrace). Which was, I guess, why I came to enjoy the tableau and to secretly root for its creator. Although the content expressed a political view that I didn’t share, the form was artistic, with art’s inherently apolitical ambiguity...."

From "A Trump Tableau/Politics and art in a Catskill front yard" by Mary Gaitskill (in The New Yorker).

"In a YouTube video from May, Caserta claimed in a 30-minute diatribe that 'the enemy is government.' Caserta recorded the video in front of an anarchist's flag..."

"... and a map of Michigan. He did not post on YouTube again until three weeks ago. In that video, Caserta does not speak and simply loads and poses with a long gun while wearing a shirt that says 'F--- The Government.'... On TikTok, Caserta posted selfie videos railing against the state, along with antigovernment hashtags.... 'The price of freedom is eternal vigilance,' he said in a video posted Wednesday. In one video, Caserta is wearing a Hawaiian shirt, which is typically associated with the boogaloo movement. On Facebook, he posted about guns and Covid-19 conspiracies and espoused conflicting political ideologies, including anarchism. Caserta's Twitter timeline appears to show his rapid descent into radicalization. In 2018 and early 2019, Caserta largely liked and posted about comedy shows, podcasts like 'The Joe Rogan Experience,' motivational quotations and selfies. Caserta's only likes after the onset of the pandemic mention conspiracy theories about Bill Gates and a meme about hogtying police officers." 

From "Whitmer conspiracy allegations tied to 'boogaloo' movement/Several of the men charged with a conspiracy to kidnap Michigan's governor have histories of anti-government organizing, according to their online profiles" (NBC News).

I'm seeing people on the right trying to associate Caserta with the left because of that anarchy flag. I see this at Townhall: "Anarchist Who Plotted Against Whitmer Also Said This About President Trump."

Go there if you need video of Caserta saying, "Trump is not your friend, dude. And it amazes me that people actually believe that when he's shown over and over and over again that he's a tyrant. Every single person that works for government is your enemy, dude." 

Does that line indicate that Caserta is an extremist of the right or an extremist of the left? I say right, because he's addressing righties, saying they need to be more extreme. Why would a lefty extremist address someone who believes Trump is his friend? And call him "dude"? "Dude" is a somewhat nice thing to call somebody. A lefty extremist would, I think, say something closer to "you fucking asshole."

"Now I’m asking sleepy Joe Biden to give me a list and he doesn’t want to do it. You know why? "

"Because he can only put super radical left judges on, people that would destroy our country, people that would destroy your country. And he knows that he’s not electable… He shouldn’t be electable anyway. This is the worst candidate. You know where he is today? They have a thing called the LID. I don’t even know. Do you know what LID stands for? LID. He put out a LID today early in the morning. LID means he’s not going to be anywhere today. I’m working my ass off, I’m in Ohio, I’m in Texas, I’m in Florida, I’m in Michigan, I’m in Wisconsin. [CROWD CHANTS: 'We love you.'] Man. Thank you. That’s so nice. Well, that is something that one of the fake news reporters back there, they said they’ve never heard of that one.... That’s never happened to a politician before. Am I a politician? I don’t want to be a politician. I don’t think of myself as a politician. But it really is, I appreciate it. I’ve never heard it. I liked Ronald Reagan, but they never said we love you, or maybe they did. They’re going to try and find out. Then they’ll say, 'President Trump lied last night because 40 years ago I remember…' But no, nobody’s ever heard that one before and I appreciate it because it is reciprocal. Thank you very much. Reciprocal. Reciprocal love. It’s reciprocal. I had such a nice life before I did this. I had such a nice life...."

From "Donald Trump Pittsburgh Campaign Rally Transcript September 22."

"If President Trump defies today's swing-state polls and pulls off another upset, what will we have missed that could have been a clue?"

That's one hell of a "we" from Axios!

The article is "The Trump identity and fashion statement" (Axios) and please click through and see the photograph — just a collection of Trumpsters, but oh, that shirt!

I've put some thought into what would be the thinking of a man who went out in that shirt — true love for Trump? amorphous rowdy enthusiasm? fun getting in the face of those who would call him deplorable? — but then I switched to thinking about the mind set of editors who would choose that man in that shirt to influence readers to feel alienated from Trump supporters — to comfortably read that "we" without stopping to question the us-versus-them presentation.

The answer to the question above — what clue will we have missed? — is:

Trump flotillas ... Trump flags bigger than American flags ... Trump truck rallies ... Trump shirts ... Trump underwear ... lawns that don't have a Trump-Pence sign or two but 50 or even 100 — a forest.

That's a lot of clues. But I get the point.

To his diehard supporters, Trump isn't just a candidate. He's a lifestyle choice and a vehicle for self-expression — a way to continually flip the middle finger at big media, big business, big government ... anything big....

Axios CEO Jim VandeHei: "In your lifetime, do you ever remember a Ronald Reagan flag as big as the American flag in somebody's front yard? Do you ever remember someone spray painting 'Obama' on their boat?"...

The article presents a "bottom line":

Trump touts a "silent majority," and pundits pundit about "shy Trump voters" who may be missed by pollsters. But one of the stories of this election is that the Trump vote is screaming, not silent.

So there are the out-and-proud Trumpsters, but that doesn't mean "the shy Trump voters" are not real. It may make the shy ones even shier to see the overt ones so exuberantly expressive.

"The oddity in all of this is the people Trump despises most, love him the most."

"The people who are voting for Trump for the most part... he wouldn’t even let them in a fucking hotel. He’d be disgusted by them. Go to Mar-a-Lago, see if there’s any people who look like you. I’m talking to you in the audience.... I don’t hate Donald... I hate you for voting for him, for not having intelligence... I do think it would be extremely patriotic of Donald to say 'I’m in over my head and I don’t want to be president anymore.'... It’d be so patriotic that I’d hug him and then I’d go back to Mar-a-Lago and have a meal with him and feel good about him because it would be such an easy thing to do."

Said Howard Stern, quoted at CNN.

"A daylong affair featuring popular singers, dancers and pounding music under a blazing sun, the 'Namaste Trump' rally was an unabashed homage to Mr. Trump."

"His name and image appeared on dozens of banners and billboards throughout the stadium and outside its grounds.... The event catered to Mr. Trump’s taste for a giant crowd. It also made vivid an image the leaders are jointly cultivating as larger-than-life, unapologetically brash figures leading their countries to bright new futures — even as their critics accuse both men of encouraging caustic nationalism and abuses against minorities.... Ahmedabad did not deliver the 10 million well-wishers that Mr. Trump has said Mr. Modi promised to turn out — television images suggested tens of thousands, not millions in the streets."

The NYT presents the Trump-in-India story, which it does not put at the top of the front page. The top story, in the NYT view, is the continuing spread of coronavirus.

By contrast, the Washington Post puts the Trump-in-India story at the top:

Clicking through on that headline, we get "Live updates: Trump touts $3 billion U.S.-India defense deal at massive rally with Modi." Sample text:

Following a 13-mile roadshow, President Trump arrived at Sardar Patel Stadium known as Motera stadium, to the cheers of more than a 100,000 people. Roads had a festive air with cut-outs of Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, flags of the two countries and colorful balloons. Onstage, Trump in a suit and neon yellow tie waved to crowds and hugged Modi. Trump’s daughter Ivanka was mobbed for selfies by excited spectators....

Abhishek Parihar, 18, a university student, heard about the event at a tutoring class and jumped at the chance to see the prime minister. “I am very excited to see Modi,” he said. And Trump? “Yes, him also,” said Parihar. Trump is a “very nice person and he was a successful businessman. And he is the best friend of Modi.”

"When presidents go abroad, their trips are typically prewired to include a number of “deliverables,” things like trade deals, security agreements and heavily scripted statements by leaders of their affection for one another."

"But President Donald Trump’s journey halfway around the world this coming week is primarily about something else India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised him — a massive, largely adoring crowd, perhaps the largest he’s ever addressed."

The spin on Trump's India trip — from the L.A. Times via MSN News.

That reminds me, Trump retweeted this yesterday:

To celebrate Trump's visit to India I wanted to make a video to show how in my warped mind it will go......

USA and India united! pic.twitter.com/uuPWNRZjk4

— Sol 🎬 (@Solmemes1) February 22, 2020

Indian Twitter accounts are strongly motivated to put up amusing pro-Trump stuff.

ADDED: "We would like to express our feelings and our happiness through our paintings...."

Thank you India!

Indian students paint portraits of President Trump & First Lady Melania ahead of their first official visit to India.

PM Modi & Trump share a deep bond, respect for each other & a love for their country & its citizens.

God Bless India 🇮🇳 God Bless America 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/xF5nSYYsNr

— Amy Mek (@AmyMek) February 22, 2020

"I love this shirt... You gotta see this shirt... He looks safe. He doesn't look like he's gonna start a fist fight."

Says Donald Trump, asking that a guy in a shirt be brought up on stage at yesterday's Las Vegas rally. Then he brings up another guy — a guy wearing a suit patterned as a brick wall — and the woman with him. Here, I've clipped out a couple minutes:



After they go back to their seats, he says, about the couple, "I just said how long have you 2 been together. Figured they'd say, 'We're married.' He met her at the rally in Colorado" — the previous day! — "Do you believe it?! Man, did he get lucky!" — pause — "They both got lucky, right?"

Inevitable?

House Democrats can push their sham impeachment all they want.

President Trump's re-election is 𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲. pic.twitter.com/O7o02S26nS

— Trump War Room (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TrumpWarRoom) December 10, 2019

(I noticed that because WaPo has an article about it "‘These are sad and strange times’: Thanos creator rips widely mocked campaign video portraying Trump as ‘Avengers’ supervillain.")

"Donald Trump Campaign Disputes Claim that Photo of President as Rocky Balboa Was 'Doctored.'"

Says Newsweek, and I hope they know they're being funny, but they seem to have a hard time acknowledging that the Trump side of this is funny.

WaPo was dumb enough to tweet, "Trump tweets doctored photo of his head on Sylvester Stallone’s body, unclear why." Most responses seemed to be laughing at WaPo for saying that what was obviously photoshopped was "doctored" — as if something hard to detect and sneaky was going on.

But Team Trump was witty enough to say, "Washington Post claims - without evidence - that @realDonaldTrump shared a 'doctored' photo."

That's not — as Newsweek imagines — a dispute of WaPo's "claim" that the photo did not show the real body of Donald Trump. It's making fun of WaPo for saying what didn't need to be said.

I believe it is also intended as mockery of the use of the phrase "without evidence" in reports on the impeachment hearings. I was just blogging about that little journalistic trick, back on November 11th. A NYT article — "What Joe Biden Actually Did in Ukraine" — said "Mr. Giuliani has claimed, without evidence, that Mr. Biden’s push to oust Mr. Shokin was an attempt to block scrutiny of his son’s actions...." I wrote:

"[Y]ou could classify Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders as the pugilists in the field, whereas Mr. Buttigieg, he of the earnest manner and Midwestern zest for consensus, fashions himself a peacemaker."

I'm trying to read "2020 Democratic Candidates Wage Escalating Fight (on the Merits of Fighting)/For all the emphasis placed on the various divides among the candidates, the question of 'to fight or not to fight' might represent the most meaningful contrast" by Mark Leibovich (NYT).

I have a little trouble with "Midwestern zest for consensus."

I don't think these coastal elites who characterize midwesterners know much at all about them/us. (Should I say "us"? I've only lived in Madison, Wisconsin, a special island in the sea of the midwest, and I didn't begin living here until I was 33 years old, past my formative years, which were spent in Delaware and New Jersey, but I did grow up with a midwestern mother, though her midwest was that other college town, Ann Arbor, and I did go to college in my mother's midwestern hometown.)

It's partly my annoyance at the blithe stereotype of midwesterners as blandly nice. Is that even true? And what is this interest in superficial getting along really about? Would it really make you want a leader who acts like that too, or would you want a leader who's willing to take on the hard fighting that you won't do yourself?

Anyway... "zest" bothers me too. "Zest for consensus" — seems like too wacky a state of mind to be present throughout an entire region.

The original meaning of "zest" is the outer peel of a citrus fruit, the bright-colored part that you use to make a "twist" for a drink or grate into some dessert recipe. From there comes the figurative meaning: "Something which imparts excitement, energy, or interest; a stimulating or invigorating quality which adds to the enjoyment or agreeableness of something... Enthusiasm for and enjoyment of something, esp. as displayed in speech or action; gusto, relish" (OED). Here's the highest peak of usage, from John Keats:

O! let me have thee whole,—all—all—be mine!
That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest
Of love, your kiss,—those hands, those eyes divine,
That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast,
Yourself—your soul—in pity give me all,
Withhold no atom’s atom or I die
Or living on perhaps, your wretched thrall,
Forget, in the mist of idle misery,
Life’s purposes,—the palate of my mind
Losing its gust, and my ambition blind!

Compare the zestiness of consensus to the zestiness of a warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast. Oh, no! This just popped up in my head:



There's your million-pleasured breast. There's your pugilist in the field.

ADDED: Can you beat the fighter with the nonfighter? There's this fantasy that what we need now is Mr. Rogers and that Pete Buttigieg is Mr. Rogers....



(That's just one of many articles you'll find if you google Buttigieg is Mr. Rogers.)

Poppy Noor at The Guardian says "Trump posted a picture of himself as Rocky. No one knows what to make of it."

Link, collecting Twitter snark about the pic.

But "no one" is a strong statement. Really? Did no one know what to make of it. I could tell you what I made of it, but it's simpler and more impressive to just look at what the Hong Kong protesters are making of it. They're carrying and flaunting big posters of that picture. The link goes to the New York Post, which says that "President Trump is Hong Kong’s sudden hero":

Hours after he signed two bills to support human rights in Hong Kong, angering Chinese government officials, pro-democracy protesters in the beleaguered city held a “Thanksgiving Rally” Thursday night to commend him for taking the action. And front and center at the rally were printouts of the president’s Wednesday tweet showing his head on Rocky Balboa’s chiseled body.

That image is like a MAGA hat, but already fully distributed on the web. Anyone can print it out and have their poster to display, and it's obvious that anyone who sees Trump as a hero can vividly (and with fun good humor) express that emotion. It works especially well in a crowd (as you can see in the photograph of the Hong Kong protesters at the the NY Post link).

The immediate deployment of the photo in such an appealing, effective way makes the Guardian's collection of I-don't-know-what-to-make-of-it snarkers seem obtuse and wet-blanket-y.

Donald Trump Jr. gets in on the travel shaming... as a joke, presumably.

https://t.co/O7JXMb6A3z pic.twitter.com/dVZtZUWoD8

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 28, 2019

ADDED: I'm reading the responses. There's this:

Look what Trump just tweeted 10 minutes ago!

pic.twitter.com/11nzKwOCtU

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2019

When I saw this in my Twitter feed, the photograph was only partially showing, only the belt level. I had to click on it to make the full image appear. I laughed out loud. A lot.

ADDED: I don't know how many votes can be swayed, but what it looks like to me is that it's really fun and lots of laughs to be on Trump's side, and it's painful and infuriating to be against him.

IN THE COMMENTS: "Wince" connects this tweet to Trump's "gorgeous chest" discourse at last night's rally:

Sometimes God chooses cancer.

July 22, 2015: "Rick Perry just gave an epic speech raging against Donald Trump and comparing him to a 'cancer'" (Business Insider).

"Let no one be mistaken - Donald Trump's candidacy is a cancer on conservatism, and it must be clearly diagnosed, excised and discarded," Perry said.... "It cannot be pacified or ignored, for it will destroy a set of principles that has lifted more people out of poverty than any force in the history of the civilized world - the cause of conservatism.... [M]ost telling to me is not Mr. Trump's bombast, his refusal to show any remorse for his comments about Senator McCain, but his admission that there is not a single time in his life that he sought the forgiveness of God... A man too arrogant, too self-absorbed, to seek God's forgiveness is precisely the type of leader John Adams prayed would never occupy the White House."

November 25, 2019: "Rick Perry says Trump is the 'chosen one' sent 'to do great things'" (The Hill).

"God's used imperfect people all through history. King David wasn't perfect. Saul wasn't perfect. Solomon wasn't perfect,” Perry said in the clip. “And I actually gave the president a little-one pager on those Old Testament kings about a month ago and I shared it with him... I said, 'Mr. President, I know there are people that say you said you were the chosen one and I said, 'You were.’  I said, 'If you're a believing Christian, you understand God's plan for the people who rule and judge over us on this planet in our government.'"

It's all in the plan, including cancer.

If you make it to the top, you're the chosen one, that time. As for John Adams, who prayed that a man like Trump would never occupy the White House (according to Perry), he must have been the chosen one in 1796 when he won the presidency, but being chosen once doesn't mean you'll be chosen twice, and he was not the chosen one when he ran for reelection in 1800. So even if you subscribe to this notion that the winner is necessarily the chosen one, it doesn't mean that "chosen one" Trump will win in 2020.

The plan is always a mystery until we see what happens.

He's going straight for the children.

Watching #TrumpRallyDallas & Luke crawls up to the TV and says “I like him mom, I like him.” I believe we have a future #Patriot #ToddlerInChief #MAGA2020 #TRUMP2020 #America #AmericaFirst #babyrepublican #Election2020 @pampollard @realDonaldTrump @POTUS @TeamTrump @GOP @VP pic.twitter.com/LWYS0je8qj

— Jenny Schmitt (@JennySchmitt11) October 18, 2019

"Drudge reads Althouse," says Meade, just now, looking at this:

Meade sings, "He is strong/He is invincible/He is Donald" (to the tune of "I Am Woman), as I click on Drudge's link.

It goes to that WaPo article "Trump’s Ukraine call reveals a president convinced of his own invincibility." That's the headline I mocked yesterday — in "WaPo's groping for bad news about Trump stumbles into the double vinc" — for the ham-handed repetition of "vinc" in "convinced... invincibility."

Drudge, amusingly, took the "invincibility" that WaPo intended only as an insult to Trump — who supposedly thinks he is invincible — and turned it into a reality — the idea that Trump is invincible.

This reminds me of something I've heard Scott Adams say a few times. If we see a word next to a person's name, it gets connected to that person, and it doesn't stay put in the precise meaning it had where we first saw it. The original user of the words can't control them after they enter other people's head.

WaPo intended to make Trump look like a delusional, dangerous fool, but maybe Drudge's presentation is something like what happens to WaPo's headline as it sets up residency in the human brain.

What happens when a group of HuffPo editors assemble to say what they think about Trump-fan art?

I'm reading "Are Ridiculous Pro-Trump Drawings Art? A HuffPost Discussion." I just want to quote a small part of the dialogue, about this artwork:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by McNaughton Fine Art (@jon.mcnaughton) on Nov 20, 2018 at 9:28am PST

The dialogue:

Ashley Feinberg — The weird thing about the football one is they kind of included his gut...

Claire Fallon — The gut of a successful man.

Ashley Feinberg — Usually, they paint him like they want to fuck him, though.

Nick Robins-Early — Mostly Trump is insanely ripped, yeah.

Ashley Feinberg — Also, curiously, he appears to be shitting himself in the football one, which is unusual.

Nick Robins-Early — It’s true, most of these do not depict the president shitting himself.

Claire Fallon — That’s just what it looks like to strain towards victory....

There's much more to the dialogue, and I am quoting the most debased snippet. It gets loftier — on to what-is-art questions and so forth. I just wanted you to see that, especially, "Usually, they paint him like they want to fuck him, though." Oh, now that makes me want to add this, from later in the dialogue:

Nick Robins-Early — [P]retty much all of these depict Trump as a hyper-masculine hot strongman....

Claire Fallon — It’s important to remember that when Trump was young people thought he was hot, and yet he has zero remaining hot traits.