Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been named as TIME magazine’s person of the year.
“Together, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris offered restoration and renewal in a single ticket. And America bought what they were selling: after the highest turnout in a century, they racked up 81 million votes and counting, the most in presidential history, topping Trump by some 7 million votes and flipping five battleground states.”
Last year’s TIME’s person of the year was Greta Thunberg. Other political leaders who have deemed the title are Donald Trump in 2016 and Barack Obama in 2012.
The Person of the Year is usually an individual, but multiple people have been named in the past. In recent years the magazine has also taken to recognizing groups or movements. In 2017, the magazine selected “The Silence Breakers” of the MeToo movement, and in 2018, chose to designate journalists who were imprisoned or killed for their work.
As reported by The Guardian, prior to naming this year’s winner on Thursday, the magazine announced four finalists, included Biden and Trump as well as two broader categories: the movement for racial justice, and frontline healthcare workers and Dr Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious diseases scientist. Trump has been on the shortlist every year since he won the 2016 election.
The first person of the year was declared in the year 1927 and since then TIME has maintained the tradition. The selection represents “an individual but sometimes multiple people who greatly impacted the country and world during the calendar year”, the magazine says. The designation is not necessarily an honour. Rather, it recognizes figures who have “influenced the news, for better or for worse,” according to the magazine.
Along with its Person of the Year honour, TIME magazine named the Korean pop group BTS as its Entertainer of the Year, and basketball star LeBron James was announced as the Athlete of the Year.
78-year-old Joe Biden has served two terms as vice president to Barack Obama and will become the oldest person to join the office of US president. 56-year-old Harris will become the first woman, the first Black and the first person of Asian descent to be inaugurated, vice president.
