Opinion | Catch the Smug Mug on That Thug!

WASHINGTON — If there have been any justice on the earth, Donald Trump would have taken the Mug Shot of Dorian Grey.

As with Oscar Wilde’s charismatic and amoral narcissist, the Image of Donald Trump ought to have been a “foul parody,” a mirrored image of what the chancer has accomplished along with his life. It ought to have proven Trump’s corroding soul somewhat than his truculent face.

It ought to have revealed a person so cynical and wicked that he’s keen to smash our nation’s soul — our democracy — and destroy religion in our establishments. All this merely to keep away from being known as a loser.

“By some unusual quickening of inside life the leprosies of sin had been slowly consuming the factor away,” Wilde wrote of Dorian’s portrait. “The rotting of a corpse in a watery grave was not so fearful.”

Now that might have been some primo merch: Trump slapping a rotting mug shot on a mug and promoting it on his marketing campaign web site for the low, low worth of $25.

Trump has lengthy felt that squinting or scowling is an effective search for him. Timothy O’Brien, a Trump biographer, recalled that Trump as soon as advised him that Clint Eastwood was the best film star ever, and O’Brien believed that Donald and Melania modeled their squints on Eastwood’s. Maggie Haberman famous in The Instances that when Trump posed for his official White Home portrait, he scowled into the digital camera and advised aides he thought he seemed “like Churchill.”

Thursday evening was performative for Trump: sweeping in along with his non-public jet and big motorcade that screamed two-tiered justice system, with legislation enforcement clearing the Atlanta streets, like centurions clearing the best way for Caesar.

Trump advised Newsmax’s Greg Kelly after the arraignment that he had “by no means heard the phrase ‘mug shot’” till his was taken — which simply reveals once more that Trump is a pathological liar. Everybody in America has heard the time period “mug shot.”

Trump stated that being booked on the horror chamber often called the Fulton County Jail — its location on Rice Avenue is cited in songs by rappers who’ve logged time there — was “a horrible expertise.”

“I went by way of an expertise that I by no means thought I’d need to undergo, however then, I’ve gone by way of the identical expertise three different occasions,” the 77-year-old stated, including about his mug shot, “They didn’t educate me that on the Wharton College of Finance.”

They didn’t educate him to not be a giant liar and cheat, both. Wharton is a spot the place they ought to educate you about mug photographs. All American enterprise faculties ought to have a category on mug photographs.

Trump did one other woe-is-me interview with Fox Information Digital, admitting that getting processed by Georgia officers, who “insisted” he have the mug shot taken, was “not a snug feeling — particularly if you’ve accomplished nothing flawed.”

He little doubt workshopped his stroppy mug-shot look in entrance of the mirror, attempting to convey “By no means give up!” as he was actually surrendering. And in one other grasp stroke of projection, he accused the prosecutors pursuing him for election interference of “election interference.”

However Trump is feral and crafty, and deep in his amygdala, he should have shivered, pondering to himself, “Rattling, I may go to jail. My liberty is definitely in danger.” Though he has spent his complete life getting away with issues, sliding out of issues, stiffing folks, conning folks, he needed to have a second on the jail when he realized he’s within the prosecutors’ sights. He even went out and employed an actual felony lawyer.

Perplexing as it’s, Trump devotees proceed to adore him. President Biden sarcastically known as Trump a “good-looking man,” however many on the correct thrilled to his jailhouse portrait. “I say this with an unblemished document of heterosexuality,” Jesse Watters swooned on “The 5” on Fox Information. “He seems to be good, and he seems to be arduous.”

On the Republican debate, nobody was sufficiently big to shove him apart. Nikki Haley appeared probably the most interesting. Ron DeSantis’s incapacity to smile is disqualifying. It was pathetic that the most effective the Florida governor may muster, requested if Mike Pence acted correctly when he licensed the election, was to say, “I obtained no beef with him.”

Vivek Ramaswamy appeared smarmy. Scott Jennings, a Republican commentator on CNN, stated that Ramaswamy was Scrappy-Doo to Trump’s Scooby-Doo. That comparability is just not honest to Scooby or Scrappy, who’re constructive forces on the earth, serving to to unmask crooks, not like Trump and his mini-me.

On Friday afternoon, Trump put out a fund-raising pitch based mostly on his 20 minutes in hell.

“It’s violent,” Trump stated of the jail the place, as he let his followers know in his fund-raising e mail, he was given reserving quantity 2313827. “The constructing is falling aside. Inmates have dug their fingers into the crumbling partitions and ripped out chunks to trend over 1,000 shanks. Simply this yr alone, 7 inmates have died in that jail.”

Yep, he’s getting scared.

As Audrey Hepburn stated in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” after she tangled with the legislation, “There are particular shades of limelight that may wreck a lady’s complexion.”