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ABSTRACT
Political scientists seeking to understand politics and policy-making typically start with what political actors say and do. But Donald Trump’s tumultuous presidency reminds us that images also matter. Engaging with methods, concepts and theories from visual studies, this article analyses images of the 45th president produced by official photographers, photojournalists, political activists and foreign governments between 1985 and 2021. W.J.T. Mitchell’s concept of the pictorial turn, it argues, helps us to understand the importance of such images for Trump’s post-truth politics, but also anxiety about their influence. This article finds that attempts to deride, deface or destroy Trump’s charismatic, strong-man persona were never likely to succeed because, as Mitchell predicts, they reduced the president’s supporters to idolaters in thrall to the power of images. Images played a more productive role, this article finds, by debunking the president’s political falsehoods in ways that textual corrections struggled to do and by documenting his administration’s disruptive approach to policy-making in areas such as foreign affairs and immigration policy. Such images did not tell the whole truth, but they were no less successful at confronting Trump’s post-truth politics as a result.
Acknowledgement
An early version of this article was presented at the Photography in Academic Research: Images in the Post-Truth Era Conference at Birkbeck College in September 2018. The author would like to thank Marco Bohr, Justin Carville, Steve Edwards, Toby James, Carlos Reyes-Manzo and anonymous referees for helpful comments. The usual disclaimer applies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 Image available at: https://www.topic.com/trump-and-the-dove.
2 Image available at: http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19890116,00.html.
3 Image available at: http://markwallheiser.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/Best-of-2015/G0000auD9E2pk4eM/I0000UB5ZL0PdwyI.
4 Image available at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2017/mar/23/donald-trump-18-wheeler-big-rig-truck-pictures.
5 Image available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/us/politics/trump-eclipse.html.
6 Image available at: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/donald-trump-drinking-water_uk_5a38d449e4b0860bf4aabbf9.
7 Image available at: https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2017/05/john-daly-compared.jpg.
8 Image available at: http://www.tmz.com/2017/05/30/kathy-griffin-beheads-donald-trump-photo-tyler-shields/.
12 See, for example, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/07/images/20060704_yg0k2546-515h.html.
13 Image available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/48490970081/.
14 See for example: https://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/48482817687/.
15 Image available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/48482622046/.
16 Images available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1-6IKMy48A.
17 Image available at: https://twitter.com/joshuabickel/status/1257671022452629505/photo/1.
18 Image available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-05/us-election-results-protesters-take-to-the-streets/12851968.
20 Image available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-inauguration-image/crowd-controversy-the-making-of-an-inauguration-day-photo-idUSKBN1572VU.
21 See: https://transcripts.factcheck.org/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-cia-headquarters/.
22 Image available at: https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/event/donald-trump-is-sworn-in-as-45th-president-of-the-united-states-693551185#/president-donald-trump-takes-the-oath-of-office-as-his-wife-melania-picture-id632194366.
24 Images available at: https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/capitol-violence#Seeking-Info.
25 Image available here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/22/world/middleeast/trump-glowing-orb-saudi.html.
26 Image available at: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/donald-trump-nato-summit.
27 Image available at: http://time.com/5307314/donald-trump-angela-merkel-g-7-photograph/.
28 The image also summoned up all manner of science fiction and orientalist memes, fuelling further attempts to ridicule Trump and his allies (see Mettle and Hawkins Citation2017).
29 Images available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-merkel-g7-photo-meaning-germany-chancellor-steffen-seibert-jesco-denzel-a8393656.html.
31 Image available at: https://twitchy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/favs.jpg.
32 Image available at: http://time.com/longform/john-moore-getty-photo-separation/.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Dermot Hodson
Dermot Hodson is Professor of Political Economy at Birkbeck College, University of London.