By Maureen Dowd / The New York Times
When I worked at Time magazine in the early ’80s, I bought a frame at the company gift shop that was a mock-up of the Time Man of the Year cover, but it was Mother of the Year. I put in a picture of my mom, looking chic in a suit, holding me as a baby.
I gave it to her for Mother’s Day as a goof.
But for Donald Trump, whose office at Trump Tower was an infinity mirror of his magazine covers, the annual Time rite has always been a serious obsession. He complained after it was changed in 1999. He asked women at a rally in 2016, “What sounds better, Person of the Year or Man of the Year?”
In 2015, when Time made Angela Merkel Person of the Year, he whined that he wasn’t the choice. “They picked person who is ruining Germany,” he sour-grapes tweeted.
Even though the prestige of the once-mighty Time had dwindled, Trump was thrilled when he finally got Person of the Year in 2016. About the cover line, “President of the Divided States of America,” he demurred that the country would be “well healed” under his leadership.
Well, turns out he was just a heel.
In 2017, David Fahrenthold revealed in The Washington Post that the framed copies of Trump on the cover of Time, hung in at least five of the president’s golf clubs from Florida to Scotland, were fakes.
The red border of the faux covers was skinnier; even my Mother of the Year frame got that detail right.
Time is a shadow of its former self, but Trump is in a media time warp, so he was delighted to land on the cover again this past week.
(Maggie Haberman had a hilarious detail about Trump’s media anachronisms in a recent story about his New York trial: One spectator was Natalie Harp, a former right-wing OAN host, who totes around a portable printer to print out positive stories or social media posts for the ex-president, who still prefers to read articles and posts on paper.)
It is telling to read the new Time cover story at this bizarre moment, when Trump is both a grumpy, sleepy defendant in a criminal trial in a city where he once towered, and a confident former president campaigning to get the Oval back and leading in many polls.
The guises of Trump add up to a fascinating triptych: In the trial, we see who Trump was; at his campaign rallies, we see who Trump is; and in his Time interview, we see who Trump would be.
The trial is a vivid reminder of the louche world of porn stars and Playboy models inhabited by Trump when he cavorted through Gotham as a larger-than-life cartoon figure, spinning his image in the tabloids day and night.
Keith Davidson — who negotiated payments for Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal to tell their stories in The National Enquirer, which then killed them — testified Thursday about the demimonde. That included a “sex-tape broker” who helped him when he was trying to suppress scandalous stories for other clients, like pro-Hitler reality star Tila Tequila and Charlie Sheen.
Trump has a stern demeanor in court, giving his mug-shot glare. But in his social media posts, he can be playful, such as: “Contrary to the FAKE NEWS MEDIA, I don’t fall asleep during the Crooked DA’s Witch Hunt, especially not today. I simply close my beautiful blue eyes, sometimes, listen intensely, and take it ALL in!!!” He also posts memes; on Friday, he put up one recommending security for the southern border that is “guaranteed to work.” It was a gaggle of alligators.
At rallies in Wisconsin and Michigan on Wednesday, he was a buoyant showman, using humor and a warm tone to undercut Democratic cries that he aspires to be a dictator.
In Waukesha, Wisconsin, he talked about how much he loves chicken despite the higher price, and then introduced a supporter who owns a vegan restaurant. “I’m not into the vegan stuff,” he said, butchering the pronunciation of the word “vegan.”
The lighthearted, human side that Trump shows in rallies and funny posts is belied by the dark-hearted, inhumane side he sometimes reveals.
In the new “If He Wins” Time cover piece, Eric Cortellessa extracted insights from Trump about how far he would go if elected.
Trump shared schemes about “an imperial presidency.” If he returns, there will be no eminences grises. He will lead his hard-core crew and there will be no pushback on his authoritarian lunacy. No aides will be hiding his papers or sneaking around behind his back to protect the country.
In a second term, Trump told Time, he would deport more than 11 million migrants, using the military and detention camps. He also wants to go full Margaret Atwood, letting red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute violators. He is mulling pardoning the insurrectionists who broke into the Capitol on Jan. 6, and he may fire any U.S. attorney who is not a lackey.
We have seen the truculent face Trump shows at trial and the affable face he shows at rallies. But the most important face is the one Trump has when he conjures the years ahead; because his vision of America’s future is terrifying and apocalyptic.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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