The President who wasn’t: The cover New Yorker planned to run if Hillary Clinton won

Hillary Clinton stands in the Oval Room, her hand perched on the President’s chair, as she gazes into the moonlit sky. She seems pensive, as if thinking to herself ‘what now?’

This never happened, but the New Yorker was ready for President Clinton.

On Wednesday, the weekly magazine released a cover it planned to run in the event of Clinton’s victory against Donald Trump in the US presidential election last year.

The illustration accompanies editor David Remnick’s article “Hillary Clinton Looks Back in Anger”.

Created by French artist Malika Favre, the illustration is titled ‘The First’. “My first reaction waking up to the news (of Clinton’s loss) was shock and disappointment on both grounds,” Favre told Hindustan Times about the day the election results were announced.

Trump clinched an astonishing victory in November last year to become America’s 45th president. Experts said he took advantage of racial tensions and capitalised on voters’ concerns over the US economy, overcoming a string of sexual assault allegations to win the election.

Favre said she didn’t work on the illustration that would be used in case of Trump’s victory.

On what the art symbolises, Favre: “For me it was about celebrating the first woman president (hence the title). The cover can be read on multiple layers: There is that moment of glory of seeing her standing in the Oval Room lit by the moon but also that feeling of anticipation and almost loneliness that I wanted to convey. A little bit like a “What now..” moment.”

Hillary Clinton’s book, titled What Happened, went on sale on Tuesday. In her memoir of her defeat to Trump, Clinton writes: “There are times when all I want to do is scream into a pillow.” The book has created a buzz around the world for its candid admissions on the high-intensity presidential campaign last year.