Donald Trump announced as Time’s ‘Person of the Year’

Time has named their Person of the Year, and it's Donald Trump.

Dec 7, 2016

Time has named their Person of the Year, and it’s Donald Trump.

The cover line reads “Donald Trump: President of the Divided States of America” and considers the question of whether Trump had affected the world for better or worse.

Time Editor-in-Chief Nancy Gibbs wrote of the choice, “This is the 90th time we have named the person who had the greatest influence, for better or worse, on the events of the year. So which is it this year: better or worse? The challenge for Donald Trump is how profoundly the country disagrees about the answer…. 2016 was the year of his rise; 2017 will be the year of his rule, and like all newly elected leaders, he has a chance to fulfill promises and defy expectations…. For reminding America that demagoguery feeds on despair and that truth is only as powerful as the trust in those who speak it, for empowering a hidden electorate by mainstreaming its furies and live-streaming its fears, and for framing tomorrow’s political culture by demolishing yesterday’s, Donald Trump is TIME’s 2016 Person of the Year.”

“For all of Trump’s public life, tastemakers and intellectuals have dismissed him as a vulgarian and carnival barker, a showman with big flash and little substance. But what those critics never understood was that their disdain gave him strength. For years, he fed off the disrespect and used it to grab more tabloid headlines, to connect to common people. Now he has upended the leadership of both major political parties and effectively shifted the political direction of the international order,” said Time‘s Washington Bureau Chief Michael Schere.

“He will soon command history’s most lethal military, along with economic levers that can change the lives of billions. And the people he has to thank are those he calls ‘the forgotten,’ millions of American voters who get paid by the hour in shoes that will never touch these carpets—working folk, regular Janes and Joes, the dots in the distance.”

In addition to the cover and announcement, Time also had an exclusive interview with the president-elect, in which he covered everything from the stock market to immigration to claims that Russian hackers tried to sway the election through Wikileaks and other means. You can watch the interview here.