US President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris were jointly named Time magazine’s 2020 “Person of the Year” for their election victory over President Donald Trump, Time magazine’s Person of the Year, 2016.
Time wrote Biden is not the first Person of the Year to be asked for America’s future, but he is likely to be the first in a generation to inherit crescendo of catastrophes: a worse pandemic which brought staggering loss of life, unemployment, economic crisis, a global climate crisis, systemic racism and misleading fact and fiction.
“For changing the American story, for showing that the forces of empathy are greater than the furies of division, for sharing a vision of healing in a grieving world,” Time said. Biden and Harris broke several gender and racial barriers, together “offered restoration and renewal in a single ticket.” America bought what they were selling and the Democratic pair racked up 81 million votes, counting the most in presidential history leaving behind Trump with 7 million votes, it added.
In 1927, Times has began the tradition of the “Person of the Year” an individual title, but multiple people have been named in past. According to the magazine, the title signifies “who affected the news or our lives the most, for better, or worse.” Last year, Climate Activist Greta Thunberg became the youngest individual winner to be the “Person of the Year”.