The day it finally became real

Yesterday was Donald Trump’s fourth arrest. It just keeps happening. The charges keep piling up. He is, obviously, finished and has been for a little while now. But in some ways yesterday ended up feeling like it was the one. It’s not entirely clear why. It just ended up feeling that way.

Maybe because Trump’s arrest finally delivered a mugshot. It wasn’t much of a mugshot. Sure, Trump looked awful in it. But not much worse than he’s looked in any of his recent public appearances. Yet there was something about finally seeing an actual mugshot of the biggest criminal in history. It’s remarkable how something so unimportant, so irrelevant in the scheme of things, can nonetheless end up having such a visceral impact. It’s not the mugshot itself that’s going to finish Trump off or put him in prison. But it sure is symbolic of where this is heading.

There was also the fact that Trump’s arrest yesterday dragged in so many of his notoriously treasonous co-conspirators. It was Trump’s arrest, but it was Mark Meadows’ first. It was Rudy Giuliani’s first. It was John Eastman’s first. It was Jeffrey Clark’s first. These people all tried to overthrow the United States. And they’re all about to get indicted at the federal level anyway. But something about this week allowed everyone to finally see proof that these sick bastards really are being destroyed.

Yesterday felt like such a culmination that even Donald Trump ended up pulling out all the stops. He finally returned to Twitter last night, just to try to fundraise off his mugshot. It was a typically pathetic move for him. But he’d been saving his “return to Twitter” for a rainy day, and well, this was the rainiest day of all.

Donald Trump and his co-conspirators will be playing defense from here on in. Trump will stand criminal trial four times, with a revolving cast of co-defendants around him each time. Trump and his henchmen are about to see their lives consist of court filings, rejections, superseding indictments, hearings, criminal trials, and in many cases plea deals. Even as Trump tries to fend off what all these criminal trials are doing to him, he’ll also have to helplessly watch as more and more of his “friends” throw him under the bus to try to save themselves. Not all at once, mind you. But they’ll start flipping once they start realizing they have to.

For now we’re simply left with the symbolism of a mugshot. Donald Trump has been completely powerless for the past two and a half years. He’s already been arrested and indicted multiple times. But something about seeing his mugshot finally made it real: Trump is finished.