…from Sher Watts Spooner @ Dail Kos
Each December, Time magazine announces its Person of the Year. It’s the individual (or group) who, “for better or for worse,” as the magazine puts it, had the greatest influence on the events of the year. This year, it should be no contest. The greatest influence in America this year came from Democratic women.
Time has been choosing the year’s major person of influence since 1927, when aviator Charles Lindbergh graced the magazine’s cover for the first time. It was usually a Man of the Year (Wallis Simpson broke through in 1936 as the Woman of the Year because of her romance with British King Edward VIII, prompting his abdication). In 1999, the magazine realized it had better get with the times and designated the achievement as Person of the Year.
Displaying his typical (yet undeserved) over-the-top egotism, Donald Trump announced that “I can’t imagine” anyone other than himself as Time’s Person of the Year. Time usually picks the winner of a presidential election as Person of the Year, so he got the call in 2016, as did Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and other presidents before him.
Too bad the public disagrees. In Time’s readers’ poll (no doubt social media-driven) on who should get the honor, Trump got only 2 percent of the vote. He was beaten out by 23 other candidates, including Robert Mueller (that’s gotta sting), Christine Blasey Ford, Michelle Obama (hey, her book Becoming outsoldany of Trump’s books—bigly), Colin Kaepernick, and Jeff Bezos (owner of the “failing” Washington Post). Also getting 2 percent of support were Maxine Waters and Stormy Daniels—like that company, Trump? At least he got more votes than Melania. The top vote getter was the South Korean boy band BTS, so that’s how seriously we should take this survey.
It’s fair to say that the people who had the most influence on the country this year were Democratic women. It’s not just one woman but a female Democratic collective: the candidates, the voters, the canvassers, the marchers, the resisters, the legislators.
And they’re just getting started….