The (Mug)shot Heard Around the World

I feel honored to be an American and am fascinated by the diverse reactions to Donald Trump’s mugshot. 

Donald Trump once claimed he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue, shoot somebody, and not lose any voters.” Many Democrats are thus celebrating Trump’s four indictments, 91 criminal charges, and the prospect of him going to jail. Many Republicans believe Donald Trump won the 2020 election and is being wrongly prosecuted to disqualify him from running again as the Republican candidate in 2024. Although I am not in either such camp, I was heartened to see Trump’s mugshot for the following reason:

We live in turbulent times and, as a Middle Eastern-born Jew who has lived through revolutions and upheavals, I am especially sensitive to security as the most important life quality after perhaps food and shelter. 

As such, I ask myself where else would I want to live to feel safe and secure. Certainly not Russia, where would-be challengers to Putin’s Mafia Rule fall off balconies like the fall leaves, are poisoned, or blown up in the air with impunity. Certainly not China, where Xi’s Communist Party is approaching Mao’s dark historic dictatorial power as he takes over Hong Kong and threatens Taiwan. Then there’s India, sixty-six years after splitting from Pakistan, still embroiled in religious turmoil. The whole of the Middle East is split along Shia-Sunni lines. Africa and South America are likewise a mess.

Our Founding Fathers were wise enough to know that man is flawed by nature and thus inherently imperfect and corruptible, so they designed a system of government not to prevent but to manage and survive the inevitability of flawed rulers. Their wisdom is evidenced by a nation that, in its 247 years, has survived a civil war, two world wars, a Great Depression, and a host of mightily unwise leaders.

In light of the above, rather than focus on the weakness of the American political system that has allowed a leader like Trump, perhaps we should celebrate the fact that in America, we let the sun shine on our mistakes and hold everyone, including a powerful x-president,  responsible for their actions, to be judged by a jury of their peers.

The rest of the world might thus regard the Trump mugshot as a symbol of America’s self-confidence and strength.

— Sina.