The Economist Magazine Cover For 11-1-2024

The Economist Read in browser November 2nd 2024 How we chose this week’s image SUBSCRIBER ONLY Cover Story How we chose this week’s image The Economist Zanny Minton Beddoes Editor-in-chief This week we published our endorsement leader—an increasingly unfashionable undertaking, it turns out. But we still think the practice is worthwhile. An endorsement captures the mood, it distils the campaign’s themes and, amid the din and chaos of the candidates’ closing arguments, it helps clarify thinking. Who knows, it might even change some readers’ minds. Tone is everything, and this year we decided to address our cover editorial to a particular set of Trump voters—not MAGA diehards or aggressive nationalists, but pragmatic, Economist-reading Republicans. These voters might not like or admire Mr Trump, but they probably look on Democratic criticism of him as wildly over the top. For them, putting Mr Trump in the White House is a calculated risk that his second term, like his first, will turn out just fine. Our leader argues that this calculation is reckless. This is a classic endorsement cover. Kamala Harris is striding towards the camera, contemplating the momentous task that awaits her. It’s good, but it fails to capture our approach. Our argument is not that Ms Harris promises to be a brilliant president. She is an underwhelming machine politician who has struggled to tell voters what she wants to do with power. Some of her policies, on climate and abortion, say, are unambiguously better than Mr Trump’s; but others, on trade and the deficit, for example, are merely less bad. A number, including her taste for regulation and for further taxing wealth creation, are worse. Despite that, you cannot imagine President Harris single-handedly steering America or the world towards disaster. Unfortunately, Mr Trump is a lot more dangerous. To get that across, we needed to take the unorthodox step of featuring the candidate we were rejecting. Here he is. It’s powerful, but it’s gloomy and menacing and that, too, clashes with our approach. Pragmatic Trump voters are infuriated when the former president’s critics cannot bring themselves to admit that he ever did anything good. Our endorsement therefore takes pains to acknowledge what Mr Trump accomplished in his first term, before getting onto why a second might be different. If readers thought they were getting a Jeremiad, they would turn the page. We needed our cover to be less portentous. This idea borrows a well-worn plot device from cartoons and B-movies to portray a Trump presidency as a countdown to disaster. Can America stamp out the burning fuse in time? The nub of our argument is that calculating Trump voters have got their sums wrong. America may well breeze through four more years of Mr Trump, as it has the presidencies of other flawed men from both parties. The country may even thrive. But voters claiming to be hard-headed are overlooking the tail risk. Compared with his first term, Mr Trump has worse policies, the world is more perilous and many of the sober, responsible people who reined in his most dangerous instincts have been replaced by true believers, toadies and chancers. By making Mr Trump leader of the free world, Americans would be gambling with the economy and the rule of law and risking even greater international instability. The burning fuse doesn’t quite get this across, because the next thing that happens is an explosion. Our argument is more subtle. We cannot quantify the chance that something will go badly wrong: nobody can. But we believe voters who minimise it are deluding themselves. This was much better. It reminds calculating Republicans that Mr Trump is not a person they would want to do business with, nor any kind of role model for their children. The trouble is that this tie-less charmer doesn’t look very much like the man sweating and gurning his way through a MAGA rally. We needed a more evocative image. This goes too far. The former president has become Jabba the Hutt. Humour has crossed into contempt. As with the images of gloom, pragmatic Trump voters will assume that we are not prepared to enter into the weighing up of pros and cons that is animating them. If they think we are telling them that backing Mr Trump would define them as stupid or immoral, we won’t change a single mind. This hits the spot. Mr Trump has his tie back on. Compared with the matinee idol, he seems to have gained a few pounds. Those sparkling gnashers supply all the editorialising we need. What about the headline? The small-print joke fits our theme, but it could be taken to mean that we are endorsing Mr Trump (with reservations). By contrast, “Not again” is strong and unambiguous, and was the cover that some of us wanted. In the end, though, we preferred a sprinkling of irony. Presidents do not have to be saints, and we hope that a second Trump presidency would avoid disaster. But Mr Trump poses an unacceptable risk to America and the world. That is why we backed Ms Harris. Cover image • View large image (“What could possibly go wrong?”) Backing stories → A second Trump term comes with unacceptable risks (Leader) → How bad could a second Trump presidency get? (Briefing) → Anti-politics is eating the West (Essay) → What to watch for on election night, and beyond (United States) Also from The Econ