• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer, December 7, 2016

It’s been a long road for Timemagazine and Donald Trump. The magazine first planted its flag on the controversial presidential candidate with a cover showing a cartoon of Trump’s face “melting” in August, following a series of seemingly unelectable gaffes. 

Then it returned to the attack in October, showing the same cartoon face turned into a puddle on the floor in a “Total Meltdown,” reflecting the conventional wisdom that his maverick presidential campaign was circling the drain. 

It’s a rather different portrayal of Donald Trump that will grace the cover of Time’s forthcoming issue — as the magazine’s iconic “Person of the Year.”

There are no cartoons, this time the cover portrait is a photo of Trump regarding the viewer coolly from over the back of a chair, as if to say “Welcome to the party.” That is perhaps a subtle admission that the previous covers got it all wrong. The cover tagline simply reads: “Donald Trump. President of the Divided States of America.”

There’s no question Trump deserves the recognition of “Person of the Year, which Time’s editors have always been quick to point out does not constitute an endorsement. 

After a campaign filled with unprecedented invective, the billionaire outsider’s victory sent shock waves through the Washington establishment. It defied all the predictions of pundits and pollsters, and calling into question the credibility of the mainstream news media, which failed to see it coming.

Time editor Nancy Gibbs told NBC’s "Today Show": “When have we ever seen a single individual who has so defied expectations, broken the rules, violated norms, beaten not one but two political parties on the way to winning an election that he entered with 100-1 odds against him. I don't think we have ever seen one person operating in such an unconventional way have an impact on the events of the year quite like this.”

Beyond this, Trump may well become the symbolic leader of a broader populist moment sweeping democracies around the world, inspired by rising sentiment against globalization and immigration. That trend that has also included Greece’s vote against the EU bailout terms, the election of far-right populists in Poland and Hungary, Brexit, Colombia’s vote against the proposed peace deal with its FARC rebels, and most recently, Italy’s vote against constitutional reform.

In that sense, Trump is probably also a harbinger of things to come. Expect more Time covers bearing his likeness.