Time "Person of the Year" 2020

I think you inadvertently made the case for Fauci.

Biden/Kamala isn’t bad. I was convinced they were going to go for “Healthcare Workers.”

I’d have gone:
Fauci
Trump
Harris
Biden
285,000+

 

The election was obviously huge. Larger than usual, though they probably all feel that way at the time. But with the darkness Trump marshaled, with the bitter partisan nature of the country today, maybe this one was really a little extra.

But if this doesn’t end in some sort of Civil War on or near Inauguration Day, Covid will be the first thing everyone remembers about 2020 and Biden is secondary to that story.

He’s not the leader of a new political wave. He’s a callback to one of the last ones. He’s a placeholder, four years of relative boring before more serious battles about the country’s future. He’s a human pause button.

This is a miss. The year is about Covid and the myriad of issues it brought about.

 

I heard it was the Wuhan Flu. I don’t talk to those folks much these days.

 

I couldn't agree more with this. Given that TIME already has tabbed various "things" for its Person of the Year recognition in the past, how can this edition's winner possibly be anything other than the COVID-19 virus?

 

The Person of the Year thing kind of jumped the shark when they gave it to St. Rudy of 9/11 over bin Laden for fear of circulation/advertising losses. Luce had no problem with Hitler (on a couple of levels). The POY is about as relevant to news as the SI Swimsuit was to sports - it became a marketing thing. See also Time's "Most Influential List" which is really nothing more than a fantasy Invite list to a cocktail party (where advertisers are invited).

 

I sat next to a future Most Influential Person in 11th grade homeroom.

That's all I got.

 

Bush is an OK person. His presidency - especially the last six years of it - were an abject disaster. The man’s warmongering cabinet let ISIS into the rooms for starters.

The enmity we have coming from the Middle East will last generations. Covid paused all that for a year. But just wait.

 

Well, I for one regretted what I thought of Bush. And if it took this misadventure to rehabilitate him, then good for him and his team.

I think it used to be enmity. Now they see us as a joke. And why shouldn't they - we can't even pass an emergency bill.