I believe this started on Fox' Jesse Watters show, with a Black panel member, Kira Davis, saying that some Black men think Trump looked tough in his photo. From this comment, the rightwing media sphere has run with a "Black people are turning Republican over Trump's mugshot" fairytale.
Fox News contributor Raymond Arroyo claimed on Friday that a "Black lady" told him former President Donald Trump is now "a gangsta" following his arrest, before arguing that Trump now "has cred among a new bloc of voters" thanks to his mugshot.
"That mugshot situates Trump in a cultural context that I'm not sure his enemies may have anticipated," he said during an appearance on Fox News' The Ingraham Angle. Now he joins Frank Sinatra, he joins Elvis Presley, he joins Johnny Cash, and Tupac Shakur."
Arroyo continued, "Meaning he is now seen by nonpolitical folks as a rebel, an outsider with swagger, and as one Black lady I spoke with earlier today here in New Orleans said, 'Trump's a gangsta', and that means he has cred among a new block of voters that perhaps have never given him a serious look and now they are looking again. This is interesting what's happened here."
The first comments I heard about Trump's mugshot compared it to the mugshots of the Central Park Five. I do not think this new photo is reversing decades of open racism from Trump. However, after other news hosts ran with the story from Watters' show, Watters doubled down on it.
