The Kanye West Presidential 'New Yorker' Cover Is a Bad Joke
We could use more foresight for 2020.
Today The New Yorker revealed its latest cover, featuring Kanye West in the iconic image of Harry Truman holding up a false newspaper (a Trib, maybe?) headline that read “Dewey Defeats Truman.” On the cover, it is Kanye instead holding up the paper that reads “Trump Defeats Kanye.”
The sense of humor in The New Yorker is hit-or-miss. This cover misses by trying to cram too much zeitgeist into one frame. Both Kanye and Donald Trump feed off their mockery. The joke is that Kanye announcing a 2020 presidential run at the MTV Video Music Awards is “funny” in the same way that Donald Trump’s current campaign is “funny.” Neither of these men will be president; suggesting that they’ll meet in a virtual tie five years from now is a version of the future that no one’s really going to entertain. Nor is it particularly entertaining.
Now if you don’t mind us, we’re gonna follow the real Kanye’s lead and pass on this cover.
