Over the past five years, the following six people were recognized as Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year”: Greta Thunberg (2019), Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (2020), Elon Musk (2021), Volodymyr Zelensky (2022), and Taylor Swift (2023).
Aside from Musk, it’s not exactly a murderers' row of larger-than-life luminaries. Your grandchildren won’t be reading about Greta Thunberg or Taylor Swift in their history books. Instead, Time’s honorees reveal more about the virtue-signaling du jour of each year: Amidst the climate hysteria, it went to Thunberg; when Trump was “literally Hitler,” it went to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris; when the left was all-in on Ukraine (and Putin became “literally Hitler”), Zelensky was the winner.
Speaking of Hitler, he actually won the award in 1938. Joseph Stalin got the nod in 1939 and 1942. In 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini was the victor.
It’s a strange award, because it accompanies a Time Magazine cover issue, a big media announcement, and all kinds of hoopla and special recognition — accolades you normally associate with something prestigious, like a Nobel Prize or an Academy Award. But instead, it’s an “honor” that presidents share with despots.
Very odd: What can you say about an award that found Gandhi, the Pope, Hitler, and Taylor Swift equally deserving?
Barack Obama won it twice. So did George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, LBJ, Eisenhower, and Truman. (Biden never won it outright himself; he shared it in 2020 with his running mate.)
This week, Time Magazine announced its 2024 “Person of the Year” shortlist. In alphabetical order:
Kamala Harris
Kate Middleton
Elon Musk
Yulia Navalnaya
Benjamin Netanyahu
Jerome Powell
Joe Rogan
Claudia Sheinbaum
Donald Trump
Mark Zuckerberg
A few observations: If Harris won the election, there’s absolutely NO QUESTION she would’ve won Time Magazine’s award (and then be proclaimed the greatest American president of our generation). Just like Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize simply because he won the presidential election, Harris would be viewed purely demographically: She was the first female and/or minority woman to win the White House… and for race-obsessed liberals, that’s accomplishment enough.
“Put her on Mount Rushmore!”
But other than “making history” by wresting the Democratic nomination without a single delegate voting for her — and then losing in an electoral landslide — the Kamala Harris trophy cabinet is empty. She spent $1 billion and blew it.
Frankly, it’s embarrassing she’s even included on the list.
Kate Middleton is another weird choice. I harbor no animosity towards her; I wish her well in her cancer treatment; but her global impact on 2024 was negligible. (And as an American, I find the whole “Royal family” schtick annoyingly anachronistic anyway: The year’s 2024! Kings and queens are about as fashionable as throwing virgins into volcanoes: Find a form of government that’s consistent with the century we’re in, for crying out loud.)
Most Americans have never heard of Yulia Navalnaya. (She’s the widow of Alexei Navalny, a Russian dissident who died in prison under dubious circumstances.) Vladimir Putin won Time Magazine’s award in 2007, so if Time wanted to publicize the conflict in Russia, Putin would be the more obvious choice. (And besides, we know Time Magazine is cool with honoring bloodthirsty dictators.) A good rule of thumb is, if most people need to Google the name on your shortlist to figure out who the heck they are, they probably weren’t especially newsworthy.
Jerome Powell of the U.S. Federal Reserve is more relevant than Middleton or Navalnaya, but not by much. Yes, the Fed chaiman has an important job, but it’s absurd to claim that he was one of the top 10 newsmakers of 2024. Instead, Powell is the kind of guy Time would pick when they want to blame the economy for something, but don’t want anyone important (cough, Democrat, cough) to take the heat.
Incoming Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum broke a few barriers of her own: She’s Mexico’s first female and first Jewish president. Time Magazine likely sees her as a South of the Border Obama. But she wasn’t even sworn in until October, which greatly limited her impact on 2024. Perhaps she’ll be a mover and a shaker in 2025; perhaps not; but including her on Time’s 2024 list seems like wishful thinking and blatant virtue-signaling.
Musk and Zuckerberg are tech rivals (who may or may not fight each other), and their respective companies were certainly influential in 2024. But Zuck won the award in 2010 and Musk in 2021. The latter dominated headlines much more than the former, but what made them influential was less about them, and more about who they were with. (So now we’re getting closer…)
And Elon Musk was with his buddy, Joe Rogan, who was one of the more surprising additions to Time’s shortlist. As the world’s most popular podcaster, Rogan was at the helm of the bobsled when alternative media supplanted traditional media: Harris did a cameo on “Saturday Night Live” and was seen by some; Trump did an interview on “The Joe Rogan Experience” and was seen by 50+ million on YouTube alone!
You can’t tell the story about the rise in alternative media without Rogan and Musk.
But as influential as they were, there’s one name that absolutely dominated headlines unlike anyone else. From beginning to end, 2024 was the “Donald Trump story.” For good or bad — and if you’re a Republican, there was much more good than bad! — this was the greatest year of Donald Trump’s extraordinary life.
Legal battles. Assassination attempts. Debating Biden AND Harris (plus a pair of ABC moderators). The Madison Square Garden rally. An unforgettable election night. And just last week: An offer to Canada to be our 51st state!
It was one yuuuge moment after the next, and he even found time to work a shift at McDonald’s.
No matter what Time Magazine says or does, Donald Trump is the real Person Man of the Year for 2024. No one else was close.
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