Donald Trump keeps the country in suspended animation from time to time — trying to get through the current situation, waiting for the next one, without an ending, indefinitely.
People are waiting to see how the Republican primaries turn out. People are waiting for another election. And four times this spring and summer, people have waited for indictments, bookings, the reactions to the indictments and bookings and, surreally, the mug shot of Mr. Trump, framed in the same box as his fellow defendants’, framed in a phone screen on iMessage or Instagram.
In Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani T. Willis’s indictment is the biggest yet, charging 19 people in a document aiming for the historical record and bringing them to Atlanta — the conclusion to months of indictments.
The scenes outside courthouses and jails this summer during the Trump bookings have reflected that push-pull on people’s attention: to show up or not, to wait for news, to wait for the inevitable, to worry a little about how it will all go. Joshua Dudley Greer, a photographer, waited outside the Fulton County Jail on Thursday, capturing that in-real-life wait.
The deepest Trump fans have shown up for months; so have people thrilled to see the arrests. Members of the media end up just waiting to deliver the news they basically knew was coming. Maybe nothing captures the exhaustion of this process like late summer in the South, when the heat and humidity can press like a brick.
The tricky thing with the waiting, though, is that four indictments are just the beginning: The rhythms of this process, with the news and charges, almost somehow got familiar in 2023. But eventually we’ll be waiting for the next uncertainty, of the trials.
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Joshua Dudley Greer is a photographer and educator based in Atlanta. Katherine Miller is a staff writer and editor in Opinion.
