US President-elect Donald Trump today was named by Time magazine as its ‘Person of the Year 2016’ for his stunning victory in the presidential polls, describing him as “President of the Divided States of America”.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump poses on the cover of Time Magazine after being named its person of the year, in a picture provided by the publication in New York December 7, 2016. Time Magazine/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS PICTURE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVE. TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
Trump was chosen by Time editors for the annual honour from among world leaders, artists, corporate tycoons and path-breaking organisations as the person who had the greatest influence, for better or worse, on the events of the year.
Trump, who has appeared on various covers of Time magazine, will now be on its cover as ‘Person of the Year’, with the sub-headline ‘President of the Divided States of America.’
“It’s a great honour. It means a lot. I have grown up reading Time magazine, it’s a very important magazine. It is a tremendous honour, I am lucky to be on the cover of Time in the past,” Trump told NBC ’s news program Today minutes after Time announced on the show he was ‘Person of the Year 2016’
However on the tagline that he will be the president of the “Divided States of America,” Trump said he has not done anything to divide the country.
“I didn’t divide America. We are going to put it back together. We are going to build up our military and we are going to be an economic powerhouse,” he said.
The first runner-up is Trump’s rival in the presidential elections and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who Time said made history for three decades as an advocate, a First Lady, a Senator, and a Secretary of State, but she will now be remembered as much for what she didn’t do as what she did.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the 11 candidates shortlisted by Time for its annual honour.
Modi won the online readers’ poll conducted by Time magazine for Person of the Year 2016, the second time he emerged winner of the reader’s choice poll.
The other runner-ups are the online hackers, who in 2016 “took aim at American democracy itself,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who “survived a coup attempt to emerge stronger than ever”, CRISPR Scientists who developed a groundbreaking new technology that can edit DNA and pop icon Beyoncé who “publicly embraced explicitly feminist blackness at a politically risky moment.”
Time Editor-in-Chief Nancy Gibbs said Trump is TIME’s 2016 Person of the Year “for reminding America that demagoguery feeds on despair and that truth is only as powerful as the trust in those who speak it, for empowering a hidden electorate by mainstreaming its furies and live-streaming its fears, and for framing tomorrow’s political culture by demolishing yesterday’s.”
Time said Trump’s “next test” will be delivering upon the voters’ expectations on bringing about change in the country.
“The year 2016 was the year of his rise; 2017 will be the year of his rule, and like all newly elected leaders, he has a chance to fulfil promises and defy expectations,” it said.