For New York magazine’s June 26-July 9, 2017 cover story, writer-at-large Frank Rich looks at how Donald Trump’s presidency has mirrored Richard Nixon’s so far. The photo-illustration featured on the cover was done by New York’s staff photographer Bobby Doherty. “The span between Nixon’s Second Inaugural and his resignation was almost 19 months. Trump’s presidency already seems as if it’s lasted a lifetime, but it’s only five months old. Never forget that the Watergate auto-da-fé wasn’t built in a day.”
“Frank dove into a close-read of Watergate history not knowing what parallels he would find with the present day,” editor David Haskell says of the piece. “But it turns out life during the extended decline of the Nixon White House was eerily similar to life today: exhausting, bewildering–and far from clear how it all is going to end.” Thus, in deciding what the cover of the issue would be, “we thought it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to imagine the parallels extending to Nixon’s famous goodbye from the White House lawn.”