He Looks Hard

Can a party be reactionary and countercultural?

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Former President Donald Trump poses for his booking photo at the Fulton County Jail on August 24, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Fulton County Sheriff's Office via Getty Images)

When Fulton County inmate P01135809’s mugshot was first released last Thursday, a number of adjectives likely jumped into your mind. Dour. Husky. Orange. Unless, of course, you host a show on Fox News. Then it made you think of one word, and one word only:

That wasn’t the only time Fox News’ new 8 p.m. guy reflected publicly on how, ahem, “hard” Donald Trump looks in his new mugshot. He did it again after Joe Biden mocked Trump by calling him a “handsome guy, wonderful guy” in response to a question about the photo. “That’s the first time Biden’s told the truth,” Jesse Watters told his audience. “It’s a handsome mugshot. My wife says he looks fierce. He looks hard.”

It’s interesting that Watters reacted to the photo with admiration more than anger. If ever there were a moment for the eternally aggrieved MAGA bloc to blow its top, one would think the indignity of its hero being forced to pose for a police mugshot would have been it.

Not so. There wasn’t much anger about it on social media this weekend. Again, rather the opposite.

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  1. Bloodredinabluestate

    I'm not sure the correct word is countercultural but it does seem like the parties have flipped positions.
    GOP used to be the party of the rich. Now it's the party of poor rural whites.
    GOP used to respect out political institutions. Now it's all deep state paranoia and don't trust any authority.
    GOP used to want to defend our interests abroad. Now isolationism is the order of the day.
    GOP used to promote self-reliance. Now it wallows in victimhood and grievance.
    GOP used to be Morning In America. Now it's American Carnage.
    So many turnabouts in one generation.

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  2. Eugene.Brianmiller

    This is great. As usual!

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  3. Austin R

    Honestly wish we could post some of the best memes that have been made out of this very silly mugshot. The creativity has been incredible.

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      Gibby

      Are you Bond or Simon Templar?

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      1. Austin R

        Boy that took me a second to understand, I'm just a guy...

        I believe that's an old screenshot from 'Live and Let Die', used to use it a lot for fantasy team 'logos'. The Roger Moore movies were on the whole pretty awful but he did his best to be cheery and professional through them.

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          Gibby

          Roger Moore bond and awful are terms that just don’t go together

          I just got a closer look it’s actually a scene from the man with the golden gun

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          1. Austin R

            OK I see it now, good catch.

            Moore deserved better films, a lot of them did really. Dalton was in the wrong decade, Brosnan had a quality rookie film and worse returns every time after, and Daniel Craig's cycle had a bit of everything from series-defining to complete nonsense.

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    Gibby

    It’s getting to the point that “burn it down” is no longer a phrase that can be just applied to rioters on the left

    The extremes on both sides now I have the same goal.

    Yeats has a poem that describes our current situation

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      Kizedek

      Except, when we talk about “extremes” we often think it’s just 5-7% or so of each side. But it’s not just the extreme on the right now. Trumpists/MAGA are some 30%.

      They might not have actually rioted, but they are very much in favor of “burning it all down” — reducing federal jobs by 75%, dismantling various govt agencies, “defunding the FBI”, “taking the country back”, etc.

      Things aren’t going “back to normal”. That’s why we haven’t been able to stop talking about Trump and what he has brought about.

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        Gibby

        I agree for the most part

        But I would say they just want to burn down different things

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    George.Skinner

    I'm not sure counterculture is the right term. This is closer to the Canadian experience of having English and French cultures sharing the same country. The French culture is concentrated primarily in the province of Quebec; another province is nominally bilingual, and there are pocket remnants of Francophone communities scattered across the rest of the country. Despite a common federal government and constitution, French Canada is very culturally and politically distinct from the rest of Canada. A lot of this has to do with a separate media ecosystem based in the French language, whereas English Canada is also heavily influenced by American media, news, and culture. This situation is a lot like MAGA populism in America: heavily concentrated in certain geographic regions, serviced by a separate media ecosystem that almost speaks its own language.

    The good news is that Canada's managed to survive with these "2 Solitudes" for over 150 years. The bad news is that it included 2 referenda on Quebec seceding from Canada, and the current modus vivendi where Quebec almost acts as though it's a sovereign nation with respect to immigration, culture, and even constitutional interpretation.

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      Thomas Grimmer

      "If they really want to go, I'm not sure I'd want them to stay." -Dan Carlin

      I'm not Canadian or terribly informed on their history and politics (I'm American after all.......) but I can't say I've ever heard a coherent or fair description of why Quebec seceding would be such a disaster for either successive country. My own cynical view is that it's more to do with access to the St. Lawrence River. It strikes me as an Anglophone bias which amounts to "thank God it didn't happen, because.,..."

      My best friend still buys into the Trump as victim myth. He lives in a blue state, works in a blue town, and lives in exurbs that would be counted as blue in Mississippi. He's a well-educated young professional from a well-adjusted, upper-middle class family, just like me. Believes in education, hard work, and accountability. I don't see a geographic or cultural segregation remotely as close to a whole enormous province in another country.

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        George.Skinner

        Aside from physically dividing the Maritimes from the rest of Canada, there’s also a significant emotional aspect. A lot of Canada’s elite comes from Quebec. In terms of Canadian political and cultural significance, it’d be a bit like New York seceding from the US. Still, if there were another serious separation effort today, I’m not sure the rest of Canada would care anywhere near as much as in 1995.

        When thinking of the divergence between Quebec and the rest of Canada, probably think Tennessee, West Virginia, or Alabama and the strength of Republicans there vs other states.

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    PSM

    My first thought when I saw the mugshot was "I wonder how long he practiced that in the mirror." It's clearly ridiculous.

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  7. Craig B.

    I see Trump as a cultural totem in much the same way OJ was back in the 90's. They both have been revelatory to me in the sense that they showed the depth of so many people's distrust of the system. The fact that they're such imperfect totems makes it all the more powerful to me.

    Trump is a rich celebrity who made his money shifting money around and being a pre-social media brand, but his ability to glom onto the schtick of "the elites are out to get you" makes him a hero among people who in most other instances couldn't stand him. The pre-candidate Trump couldn't have hung out at a church event or a union meeting without some boos and nasty stares but now he'd be mobbed by acolytes in those situations. OJ was the epitome of the conciliatory black man eager to avoid anything that might mitigate his standing in the white community, but being arrested allowed him to become a symbol of black anger toward the justice system.

    If either of these two men were the traditional avatars of those communities it would be one thing. But in both cases you had such a critical mass of people who felt aggrieved by the system that they were willing to glom onto virtually anyone who could be a vessel for their anger.

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  8. Ackemma1

    Everything about the mugshot is cringy.

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      John N.

      The only thing cringier is looking at this image and stating on national television that you love the picture and that he looks "hard."

      🤮

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  9. Terence T

    Reactionary, but counter-cultural, is a good description of most insurgent fascist and/or authoritarian movements.

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  10. Dougrhon

    The Trump cult isn't reactionary. It is at it's core revolutionary. But like most populist revolutionary movements it has no understanding of what it is doing or risking. Of course Trump himself is a grifter and has no core beliefs at all other than his own aggrandizement. But he has tapped into the revolutionary impulse of his followers. I cannot begin to tell you how many seemingly normal, educated, middle class, completely succesful people I know who use phrases like "We are at war"or "tyranny" and quote Jefferson's famous statement about the tree being soaked with the blood of patriots. They seem to have no idea what they are calling for, no idea what they would be risking and no idea what would be lost if they got what they seek. Tyrants and grifters have taken advantage of people like this for centuries. It never goes well.

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