'Time' cover shows Trump struggling to stay afloat during 'Plague Election'

Tim O'Brien,Time magazine's longtime cover art collaborator, isn't done with Donald Trump just yet.

The cover for Time's latest double issue (August 17 and 24) features the fourth installment in O'Brien's award-winning series of striking Trump covers. And as you may have guessed, the president is once again shown weathering a storm and struggling to stay afloat in office.

O'Brien's most recent Trump cover shows the president wading through a coronavirus-infested sea in front of the White House. The visual is accompanied by the words, "THE PLAGUE ELECTION," which references Time national correspondent Molly Ball's cover article titled, "How COVID-19 Changed Everything About the 2020 Election."

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"For the past year, I've been pondering one more cover in the series, but there was always a new intervening controversy, scandal, social upheaval, or norm-crushing tweet to change the story," O'Brien told Time.

As you may recall, the Brooklyn-based artist also created the "Nothing to See Here" (Feb. 27, 2017,) "Stormy" (April 23, 2018,) and "In Deep" (Sept. 3, 2018) covers of Time.In the first, Trump was shown seated at his desk in the Oval Office with a storm cloud above him. In the second, a flood was added. And in the third installment, the Oval Office was completely submerged and Trump was shown treading water. O'Brien also created the April 9, 2019 cover "Just Singin'", which shows Trump strolling through the rain.

A side-by-side composite of O'Brien's first three covers in the Trump series. Credit: mashable composite: TIM O'BRIEN / TIME

O'Brien described the "Plague Election" cover by saying, "The rising water as a metaphor for chaos in the Trump White House could only end two ways. So he survives only to be in the surging waves surrounded by coronavirus, each one a little bomb."

You can learn more about O'Brien's "Plague Election" cover here.

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