Why 'Time' Named Donald Trump 'Person of the Year'

Time magazine named President-elect Donald Trump "Person of the Year" on Wednesday. Trump is Time's 16th "Person of the Year" since 1999, when the magazine changed the title from "Man of the Year," a title it started bestowing on historic figures in 1927. Trump is the 79th person to be given the title, and 2016 is the 90th time Time bestowed the year's mantle on one person or group of people.

While Time admitted that Trump essentially defined the 2016 election, it did not treat him kindly. "The revolution he stirred feels fully American, with its echoes of populists pasts, of Andrew Jackson and Huey Long and, at its most sinister, Joe McCarthy and Charles Coughlin," wrote Nancy Gibbs. "Trump's assault on truth and logic, far from hurting him, made him stronger."

Gibbs described his appeal as "part hope, part snarl," even while admitting that it "dissolved party lines and dispatched the two reigning dynasties of U.S. politics." She also acknowledged that "his victory mirrors the ascent of nationalists across the world, from Britain to the Philippines, and taps forces far more powerful than one man's message."

More