Time Blew It On Person(s) of The Year

Time Blew It On Person(s) of The Year

By Ed Kociela

As part of the honeymoon period between the incoming administration and the media, Time magazine has named President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as its Person of The Year for 2020.

In announcing Biden and Harris for the honor, Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal said they were chosen “for changing the American story, for showing that the forces of empathy are greater than the furies of division, for sharing a vision of healing in a grieving world.”

While all that gushing may contain elements of truth, I don’t think it is enough to earn the honor. I understand the sense of relief since Biden and Harris put the hurt on the outgoing president by more than 7 million votes, but is that enough to light up the marquee? I don’t think so.

Time picks its Person of The Year as someone who its editors believe has had the most effect on the things that have happened during the year, whether good or bad. We had a couple of other candidates who were much more worthy of the spotlight.

We have the heroic healthcare workers who have worked tirelessly through 2020, fighting to save lives. With no real grasp of how to treat COVID-19, no medical precedence to fall back on, and often, with little or shoddy at best protective gear, they have risked their lives working impossible hours under the immense emotional duress of watching more than 250,000 Americans perish. Still, they persevered.

We also have the activists who took to the streets, risking their lives as well in this COVID-19 environment, to fight for racial justice, to try to reverse the systemic racism that has tarnished this country since its inception, a scourge, a blight on humanity, America’s forever sin.

The president was also in the running to pick up his second Person of The Year award from the magazine. He would have been a legit pick because he certainly did have a massive effect in 2020, but I think, like more than 80 million Americans, the Time editors have had enough and would just like to see him go away at this point.

Time has reeled it in a bit in recent years, growing reticent to name a controversial Person of The Year because of the backlash it creates. Maybe why that is why they didn’t name the president. Readers were not happy in the past when Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, or the Ayatullah Khomeini were given the honor. In fact, as many have noted, in 2001 the logical choice was, without question, Osama bin Laden. However, the magazine instead gave the honor to Rudy Giuliani, who was mayor of New York City at the time of the September 11 attacks. It wasn’t Time’s greatest moment, but it soothed readers who would have balked at bin Laden being named alongside such previous winners as Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, three popes, and Winston Churchill.

So while I guess a case could be made for naming Biden and Harris, I think their selection was pretty much Time flipping a giant middle finger at the outgoing president, something the magazine, in light of how the president has treated the media in general, has a right to do. But, as happy as I am that Biden and Harris won the election – and, by such a handsome margin – I certainly wouldn’t have given them the nod. First, it will only serve to further fuel the conspiracy fans who claim Democrats have the media in their hip pocket. Most importantly, other than winning the election despite the historical significance, they haven’t done anything yet but assemble their team. They have restored, to be sure, a certain normalcy to our political landscape and offered some actual leadership, but that is what they are supposed to do and I don’t know if you should be rewarded for doing what you’re supposed to do. I mean, should we give our kids a reward simply because they finished their homework? No, they are supposed to finish their homework.

Time’s editors took the easy way out, not something that should be admired in an organization that is supposed to stand as a watchdog for the American people. If I was on the editorial board I would have suggested, perhaps, that “Life” should be the Person of The Year and split the honor between healthcare providers and protesters because, in essence, they were both bravely dedicating themselves to saving lives in one way or another. They earned it, whether working hundreds of hours at a stretch in some COVID-19 soaked intensive care unit or out on the streets, where they faced vicious thugs and rabid police. Biden and Harris have at least four years to earn Person of The Year honors and “earn” is the operative word. Let’s see what they do and if they deserve it, great, if not, oh well. As much as we may like them, they don’t get a pass. To do so would be dishonest.

Meanwhile, on the same day that Time announced its Person of The Year, the German magazine Der Spiegel published a piece in which it named the president as its Loser of The Year.

Now, this is not an annual thing for the magazine, just a one-off article that excoriates the president by citing the numerous scandals of his administration, from downplaying the pandemic to tear-gassing peaceful protesters, his demonization of the media, his efforts to divide the country, the impeachment, and his failure to accept the results of the election.

The “presidency ends as it began: Without decency and without dignity,” the article’s authors, Roland Nelles and Ralf Neukirch wrote. “The formerly proud party of Abraham Lincoln has degenerated into a collection of spineless yes-men.” They go on to describe the president as “a man who … was never concerned with the common good, but always with one thing — himself.”

Now, that’s an award I can get behind.

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