Former President Trump has raked in a historic amount of money resulting from the mugshot release when he was booked at an Atlanta jail last week.
The Fulton County district attorney in the case, Fani Willis, requested mugshots for all the defendants involved with the sham prosecution alleging attempts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. In short, the mugshot was an optional step that the DA wanted to see for a variety of politically motivated reasons with the intention to harm Donald Trump down the road.
Some outlets, like the Associated Press, wrote about the mugshot like they were writing a romance novel:
When the camera shutter blinked inside an Atlanta jail on Thursday, it both created and documented a tiny inflection point in American life. Captured for posterity, there was a former president of the United States, for the first time in history, under arrest and captured in the sort of frame more commonly associated with drug dealers or drunken drivers. The trappings of power gone, for that split second.
Left behind: an enduring image that will appear in history books long after Donald Trump is gone.
“It will be forever part of the iconography of being alive in this time,” said Marty Kaplan, a professor at the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Communications.
Calm down there AP, It’s just a picture, but I suspect the rest of the lurid images are playing out in their heads while they sip wine in the bathtub.
While the mugshot brought glee to many a Democrat eager to see the former president prosecuted and barred from running in 2024, Trump used the image to his fundraising advantage, Politico reports:
Donald Trump has turned his Georgia mugshot into a record-breaking fundraising haul.
The former president has raised $7.1 million since he was booked at an Atlanta jail Thursday evening, according to figures provided first to POLITICO by his campaign. On Friday alone, Trump raised $4.18 million, making it the single-highest 24-hour period of his campaign to date, according to a person familiar with the totals.
The campaign’s fundraising has been powered by merchandise it has been selling through his online store. After Trump was taken into custody, the campaign began selling shirts, posters, bumper stickers and beverage coolers bearing Trump’s scowling mugshot. The items bear the tagline “NEVER SURRENDER!” and range in price from $12 to $34.
Democrats had to know this would be the case, right? Each and every time Trump is harassed or indicted further, his poll numbers and support seem to incrementally expand.
It’s not just the mugshot, however, as Trump’s fundraising numbers over the past several weeks have ramped up exponentially:
Trump’s campaign says it has raised nearly $20 million in the last three weeks, during which time Trump was indicted on charges related to his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and for trying to overturn the Georgia vote count in the 2020 election. That figure is more than half of what Trump raised during his first seven months in the 2024 race.
Trump’s arrest in Georgia and subsequent mugshot also overshadowed the Republican debate that took place the day before. Once again, as is often the case, Trump takes the oxygen out of the room for the rest of the field.
While many an article has been written about Trump’s political donations being used to pay his legal bills, supporters seem unphased and remain willing to open their wallets to help the former president fight back against what they view as unfair and unjust political prosecution.
Trump’s mugshot face is ending up on shirts, mugs, hats, and even a tattooed thigh:
Somebody in Las Vegas had Trump's mugshot tattooed on his thigh (via Vegas Vic Tattoos IG:vegasvic_tattoos) pic.twitter.com/DlQsRzK9yo
— Las Vegas Locally ? (@LasVegasLocally) August 26, 2023
It’s a historic image, to be sure, and people are taking the opportunity to mark the occasion by sending donations and buying up merch at the same time.
Democrats may have produced a backfiring strategy that could wind up propelling Trump into a stronger position in the primary and possibly a stronger position next year in the general election.
