Do you agree with Time choosing Trump as their Person of the Year?

Person of the year isn’t necessarily positive. I’d agree he’s made the biggest splash.

It pains me to think how gratifying this will be to his ego, but Time doesn’t frame this choice as an honor. Yes, Trump will be there among previous winners Gandhi and Pope Francis, but also with Stalin and Putin.

They chose Hitler in 1938, so it seems like this is in keeping with tradition. As @Mariah pointed out, being Person of the Year isn’t necessarily positive. People tend to take it that way, however, which is probably why the magazine’s editors felt the need to be so cautious in their wording of the announcement.

Yep, unfortunately for you americanos though he’s likely to be the person of the next few years also.

I’m fine with it.

Actually I do not. He was as unpopular a candidate as has run in the history of polling data. He won by default, when the Democrats essentially forfeited. He really did nothing except step into the vacuum left behind when the Democrats…

Ignored their base for years in favor of people who think that gender specific toilets are a crime etc.

Ran a candidate that has had low popular opinion numbers for about half my whole lifetime

Ran a candidate who tended to insult and guilt trip too many white working class fence sitting voters

Ran a campaign that acted as if the “rust belt” shouldn’t care about the rust, and/or that no voters live there.

Implied that anybody who was not on board with their bad candidate and poorly run campaign simply had to be racist, sexist and homophobic, thus again insulting voters who disliked both candidates.

He gets more credit for winning than I think he really deserves. The Dems just gave it away.

By the Time criteria for ” Person of the Year” the person or persons that had the greatest influence was anybody associated with the Democrat campaign.

@josie I just gave you a GA. A Christmas miracle? :-)

@janbb

Nice to see you getting into spirit of the season! Look for somethong nice in your stocking.

He beat the media at their own game, so he gets something for that.

I’m hopeful it means some non-magazine readers will buy the issue and keep a magazine alive for a while.

I think it’s a bit premature but would be pertinent for 2017. I think he is going to get a lot done , (he has a head start on this), fix a lot of problems and have more fans than ever .
Don’t look for Trump to spend ⅓ of his time on the golf course while buildings are blowing up and people are dying. I couldn’t be happier.

@thorninmud I agree. Interesting to note that Time has selected other controversial winners of this award including Hitler, Joseph Stalin (twice), Nikita Kruschchev, and Ayatullah Khomeini and they were not flattering adulation’s.

“Time” for the inevitable comparisons of Trump to Hitler to continue.

Interesting to review the full list of previous cover holders.

The shortlist for 2016.

@BellaB That shortlist didn’t contain half of the front runners in the poll. Assange was leading Trump just a few days ago

Assange 10%, Trump 9%, Modi 5%, May 5%, Comey 4%, Sanders 4%, Clinton 2%…

@Cruiser , that was Time’s shortlist, not a popular poll list.

@BellaB I knew this much…I just posted the most recent polling of which I found it interesting the other contenders that were in the race that were not mentioned on the shortlist especially Assange and Comey. Trump did not stand a chance of being elected without both of their contributions to the news cycle.

I expected this. We know it’s not meant as a compliment. I think I’d have had to pick him too, even though the sight and sound and thought of him make me feel ill.

@Jeruba I have watched this award for years now and never connected the dots until I saw Trump win this distinction and read the article. Then I realized it can be a choice they almost have to make “for better or for worse”. On Twitter why am I so not surprised the Trumpettes are not picking up on this nuance?

Ha Ha! I just read a comment on Twitter about correlating Trumps pick to Goodwins Law

I’d rather it be a different person. But I think he’s far more qualified for person of the year, than president…

He is shown as the president elect of the disunited states, or something like that. Very appropriate wording!!!

According to Time Magazine, their criterion for choosing the Person of the Year is “the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill, and embodied what was important about the year.”

I grudgingly agree. He should have never gotten the press he received from the beginning, and it is a result of people’s fascination with bad behaviour. Fuck it.

@Espiritus_Corvus I would lay the blame on the media for the point you made. They gave Trump the platform he then exploited. The media did it for ratings and created the unintended consequence of attempting to shine a very bright satirising spotlight on Trump which only allowed him more media time to take out his primary competition like shooting ducks in a barrel and then no matter how many spotlights the media shone on Hillary and how much they tried to hide the reality of Trumps “movement” and popularity…in the end they the media totally overestimated their influence on the outcome they all desired. Lessons that should be learned and one Time Magazine “for better or worse” apparently has not fully digested.

^^ ... And the media would not have those wonderful ratings if people would have just turned off their fucking TVs.

@Espiritus_Corvus That ship sailed the moment they invented the remote control.

^^ I suppose you are right. And I am just an anachronism barking in the dark. Oh, well.

Fucking sheep, and there TV’s….

My t.v. is a very nice mask and necklace rack these days. Not sure why I bothered getting a flat screen. We haven’t turned it on in years.

I once lived for four years with no cable TV. I would occasionally watch DVDs, but otherwise nothing. I didn’t feel like I missed out on much…

@Espiritus_Corvus If you keep scouring the dark corners of your imagination, I am certain you will find an answer that justifies your hopelessly biased point of view that belies the reality the rest of have to live in.

Right. The media isn’t driven by viewership. What world do you live in, Cruiser?

Well. The viewership is also driven by accessibility. There are many more people now that can see content of their choice.

It was NOT hard to research a candidate this year. But I doubt many voters did…

What a crazy time we live in….

They’re probably right. They were about Hitler!

@Espiritus_Corvus I live in the real world…the MSNBC Morning Joe world that has the only 2 people on staff and on record that said they believed that Trump very well could win the election. Both were laughed at and soundly beat down by the rest of the main stream liberal media. Who is laughing now?

I was expecting that this might happen. In terms of impact and change, it is a reasonable choice. I just hope our democracy will survive Trump’s presidency.

To put things in perspective, earlier this year Hillary Clinton was the third person that Atlantic magazine ever endorsed for president, and they said that it was pretty much all because of the awfulness of Trump.

None of the traditional prizes and awards hold any honor any more. The media all became so biased toward the left and gave awards based on politics rather than accomplishment that I don’t care who is named by any magazine, the pulitzer, or the nobel. So my answer really is, who the heck cares anymore?

This Time magazine recognition is not a prize, not an honor, not an endorsement. It is baldly and simply identifying the year’s biggest headline grabber.

If it were an honor, how would putting Trump on the cover be a case of left-biased media?

Sometimes I want to ask people, “Doesn’t it bother you not to make any more sense than that?” But I think the truth is that it doesn’t.

I found this video of Nancy Gibbs explaining why Trump was the obvious choice for person of the year to be revealing.

“Nancy Gibbs, exclusively on TODAY. “When have we ever seen a single individual who has so defied expectations, broken the rules, violated norms… I don’t think we’ve ever seen one person have an impact on the events of the year quite like this,”

@Jeruba It wouldn’t be an honor regardless when you acknowledge Time’s statement to go along with the cover picture. Time would never want anyone to mistakenly think they bestowed and honor on Mr. T. They are part of the left biased media I mentioned. Sometimes I want to ask people how they overlook something as egregious and huge as the behavior of the left media during this election cycle.

So . . . @MollyMcGuire, you think Trump was lying when he said it was an honor?

“It’s a great honor. It means a lot,” Trump told NBC’s Matt Lauer on the “Today Show.”

Or he just didn’t know any better?

@Jeruba This was an eye opener for me as I was not aware of the distinction behind this Time “person of the year” award…for better or for worse. The editor herself said the choice was a no brainer because no one ever has defied the odds, tore up and owned the news cycle the way the Donald did. For that he deserves recognition and accolades and again why Time chose him. Donald and 50% of the US population are reveling in his Time Cover where the other 50% is holding their nose and grabbing the nearest barf bag. It is what it is and color it how ever it suits you.