How much did it hurt? How painful must it have been for TIME to feature Donald Trump on the left-"leaning" magazine's cover for the second time in two months?
TIME's December "Person of the Year" issue featured a statesman-like president-elect, while January's inaugural issue shows President Trump allegorically sweeping away four years of the disastrous and divisive policies of President Joe Biden from atop the historic Resolute Desk.
How much does TIME itself hate this cover? pic.twitter.com/2jLNnsKsXf
— MikesRight (@RealLibSmacker) January 20, 2025
Click the arrow to see the image in glorious animation.
TIME's new Inauguration cover: Donald Trump's disruption is back https://t.co/f6thgzBMCY pic.twitter.com/LwsTz8sMyl
— TIME (@TIME) January 19, 2025
The December issue's image of Trump was pensive, if not cynical.
Donald Trump is TIME's Person of the Year https://t.co/IjP5W2otV5 pic.twitter.com/CVHX9o0DB3
— TIME (@TIME) December 12, 2024
Lest you think TIME has experienced a miraculous metamorphosis, allow me to abuse you of the notion.
The magazine's feature article, titled "Donald Trump’s Disruption Is Back," begins:
Lost amid the hullabaloo surrounding Donald J. Trump’s second Inauguration as President of the United States—the last-minute, cold-driven venue changes, the galas and balls, the $170 million raised from donors both big-name and anonymous—is the point of the whole extravaganza. In the summer of 1787, the delegates to the federal convention in Philadelphia included in the document they were drafting a requirement that before taking office, the President should recite the following oath:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Not everyone thought it was a good idea.
According to TIME, several delegates believed at the time that oaths were pointless, almost superstitious.
It’s the only verbatim pledge in the U.S. Constitution, and in retrospect it speaks to the document’s fragility, a sense that the men struggling in secret in Philadelphia were worried their hard-won agreement was so tenuous that it required a promise from future leaders to respect their work. Yet every president from George Washington on has recited the 35 words as a commitment to the rule of law in the face of unpredictable forces of change.
"Trump, of course, is himself an unpredictable force for change, the article reads. "Whatever one thinks of him, he has altered America in ways unimaginable a decade ago." That is undeniable.
Presidents respected prosecutorial independence as a way of protecting citizens from an elected leader's trying to use the power of law enforcement for personal interests. For 75 years, Commanders in Chief upheld the U.S. pledge of mutual defense with its NATO allies. Trump has cast these norms aside, and the consequences are rippling around the world. He is arguably the most influential change agent to occupy the White House since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
I've often written the presidents beget presidents. The last four years, culminating with Trump's decisive election win, is testament to that reality. Others abound.
Recently-deceased former President Jimmy Carter, whose presidency was marred by the Iranian Hostage Crisis, long lines at gas stations across America — an America the Democrat president himself described in his famous Crisis of Confidence Speech, often described as the "Malaise Speech" — undoubtedly begat President Ronald Reagan and the Reagan Revolution.
Eight years of the Barack Obama administration, stained by Obama's politics of division along both class and racial lines, made Trump's first term possible, while, as I suggested above, Biden's intentional illegal alien crisis, spectacularly failed Bidenomics and complete loss of cognitive capacity ushered in what many hope is a new golden age under Trump's leadership.
"The key moments of Trump’s second term will come when the forces of political resistance, his own advisers, the legal system, or his fellow world leaders oppose the President’s moves," TIME melodramatically predicts, while also trotting out the "convicted felon" schtick.
Trump told TIME last fall, “I’ll only do what the law allows, but I will go up to the maximum level of what the law allows.” His most anxious critics point out that he is not exactly a man of his word. He changes positions and discards allies at the drop of a hat—he’s already named and replaced his White House counsel before even taking office.
The 47th President is the first to enter office as a felon, convicted less than a year ago by a jury of his peers of 34 counts of falsifying business records. Reciting a simple oath doesn’t seem like much assurance that he will abide by the Constitution.
Just one problem, TIME.
How many times did Biden pledge not to pardon his crackhead son, Hunter? How many times did Biden ignore the Supreme Court decision to strike down his student loan "forgiveness" — transfer of contractual debt to America's taxpayers — program? The list goes on, but Biden is a Democrat and Trump is Trump.
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"As Trump takes office for the second time, the pledge at the center of his Inauguration spectacle now seems less an expression of insecurity by the framers than one of wisdom, TIME opined. Then this:
Those anxious about what is coming can be glad that on Aug. 27, 1787, the convention delegates decided to broaden their original version of the President’s oath from a simple promise to “faithfully execute the duties” of the office to a further commitment to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." It is on Trump, and America, to ensure that oath is kept.
I'm not nitpicking here. I just loathe blatant hypocrisy.
