The New Yorker's newest President Trump cover is the most brutal one yet

An evil clown emerging from the forest. A fitting analogy for the presidency?

Published October 24, 2017 2:13PM (EDT)

The New Yorker Cover (The New Yorker)
The New Yorker Cover (The New Yorker)

The New Yorker's newest cover is both brutal and inevitable. "It" was rebooted as a franchise this year, and the Joker still won't die. American Horror Story's latest season "Cult" stars Sarah Paulson as a woman with numerous phobias, among them a fear of clowns that intensifies after Donald Trump is elected president. With plenty of backlash from even his own party, Trump has been thought of as a scary joke. Now the New Yorker features Trump on their cover just in time for Halloween as a menacing clown. The cover, entitled "October Surprise" was painted by Carter Goodrich.

"My whole life has been disrupted. It’s a national nightmare," said Goodrich in the New Yorker, calling Trump a "dangerous clown."

He wasn't far off from the reaction that Paulson's character had on American Horror Story on election night.

"I’m still just as stunned now as I was a year ago, on Election Night," Goodrich said.  "I have been asked to work on movies about him. I can’t do it; most satire seems to lighten what feels to me like a dire situation. He’s already a cartoon villain, infantile and strange."

Twitter, naturally, ate the cover up.

No tweet yet from Trump on the cover, though it's probably a good bet to say that if he does respond he will be most triggered by those tiny little clown hands.


By Jarrett Lyons

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