The corporate media has certainly taken the dictum of “Do not obey in advance,” and elected to do the opposite. Which should only be expected because preemptively currying favor with a burgeoning autocrat is the best was way to get that critical inside track to the most timely propaganda, and also not risk having your broadcast license revoked or access to the White House Briefing Room denied.
Stranger
I’m fine with this pick, although I really couldn’t give less of a shit who’s Time Person of the Year. Trump proved this year that the American appetite for — or at the very least tolerance of — corrupt, authoritarian government is deep, widely-held and abiding. Nobody could tell themselves this year that he ran against a uniquely bad candidate, or that people were taking him “seriously, not literally.” He was absolutely transparent about who he was and what he would do, and half of America said, “sounds good.”
Perversely, we owe him a vote of thanks for ripping off the blinders.
I don’t mind the “ripping off the blinders” about how many voters—and nearly the entire GOP minus Kamala Harris’ new gal pal Liz Cheney, who is a would-be authoritarian in her own right of the non-MAGA flavor—are just fine with emergent fascism and a cult of personality around an incompetent, grievence-filled reality tv show host convicted of 34 felonies and found legally culpable in a civil trial for rape, but I could do without four years of control over immigration, foreign relations with strategic allies, the military and nuclear arsenal, and a plan to defund many important government agencies (or at least ‘impound’ their funding), persecute his enemies (which at last count includes not just everyone who ever said anything unkind about him but also military officers and government functionaries who did anything he doesn’t like), and not only denying the reality of climate change but actively trying to shut down programs to monitor atmospheric and ocean temperatures and halt efforts at mitigation and adaptation. Plus, whatever comes after him, because that probably isn’t going to be any better even if ifs initials are not JDV.
Stranger
Yeah, I don’t disagree. It’s going to be a tremendously painful (at least) four years. But if we’re ever going to recover then the opposition will need to be honest with themselves about the nature of Trump’s appeal.
Agreed, but I think the real problem is not only not just Trump, but not just the electorate of the United States; we’re seeing a global shift not jus away from democratic governance but toward cult-of-personality-driven autocracies in states that have had long standing representative governance, and shockingly little popular resistance. Ironically, one notable exception is Poland, which despite only having democratic institutions for about the last thirty years, shifted hard right toward despotism in an early case of what has been termed “democratic backsliding”, and then back toward normal governance (at least, for now) while longer standing democracies appear to be making speed runs toward autocracy, often using purely legal methods to strip away civil rights and protections of free expression. I have some theories about why this is so but they are beyond the scope of this thread.
Stranger
This is indeed the most worrisome part.
And as Smapti replied back then:
I legit don’t get the people in this topic who think Kamala should have won to “spite” Trump.
You think the person who ran a campaign so bad she lost the POPULAR vote somehow “deserves” it more? I understand hating Trump but rewarding Kamala or Biden for royally screwing up an election isn’t it.
I don’t give a fuck who “deserves” this (and it’s not supposed to be about deserving anyhow) but would have been amused to see him get pissed off had they not named him. Everyone seems to be falling all over themselves to defer to him so I am happy with any pushback whatsoever.
Well yes, its “for better or for worse … has done the most to influence the events of the year” which is quite literally Trump there’s no disputing it. Now we’re getting into some weird area where we should nominate Stormy Daniels as Person of the Year because now we’re trying to personally offend Trump.
Well, yes, of course; isn’t that everyone’s goal?
I think many people think that “person of the year” should only be people who have influenced events of the world for the better.
Seriously who reads or thinks about Time magazine anymore? Time (and competitors like Newsweek) filled a real niche pre-internet but not nowadays. What was the last scoop you remember that Time broke?
Nothing new about this; when Ayatollah Khomeini was named in 1979, there was a serious backlash (which is why I questioned in the top post of the thread if Time would actually name Trump should he be elected). There is a theory that this was the reason Rudy Giuliani was named instead of Osama bin Laden in 2001 (“see, we didn’t give it to Osama, please keep reading our magazine and advertisers keep buying ad space here!”).
This is probably the one instance per year in which people pay any attention to Time anymore – and, of course, it’s a PR moment, and a “news item,” that’s manufactured by the magazine itself.
Why not name Putin? He’s probably killed as many or more people than Trump has.
He’s already had that (dis?)honor, in 2007.