US President-elect, Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris have been jointly named Time magazine’s 2020 “Person of the Year” on Thursday, December 10 for their election victory over Donald Trump.
Time in a profile of the pair, published online with its announcement said the Democratic former vice-president and his running mate, a California senator whose election broke gender and racial barriers, together “offered restoration and renewal in a single ticket”.
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Time’s magazine cover has a picture of Mr Biden, 78, and Ms Harris, 56, with the subtitle “Changing America’s story”.
Explaining the reason for its choice, Time stated;
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. Together, they offered restoration and renewal in a single ticket. And America bought what they were selling.
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The Democratic pair were chosen ahead of three other finalists: frontline health care workers and Anthony Fauci, the racial justice movement and President Trump.
Biden beat Trump by 306 electoral college votes to Trump’s 232 to end the real estate tycoon-turned-politician’s presidency after one term.
The US President-elect received roughly seven million more votes than his Republican adversary, who is yet to concede, claiming widespread fraud of which there is no evidence.
Time praised the Democratic ticket for ousting an incumbent president for the 10th time in US history.
The magazine wrote;
Biden and Harris had to revive the party’s fading strength with white voters without college degrees; energize its emerging base of diverse, urban young voters; and motivate the hordes of angry suburbanites, particularly college graduates and women, who had fled the Trump-era GOP.
Time magazine’s award — handed out annually since 1927 — honors the person or people who most impacted the news, for better or worse, during the calendar year.
When asked by Time what he would like people to say about him after four years in the White House, Biden replied;
That America was better off and average Americans are better off the day we left than the day we arrived. That’s my objective.
Harris is the first Vice President-elect to be named Person of the Year.
She said in an interview with Time that Biden’s administration would have to tackle a host of issues from the White House, including the pandemic, an “economic crisis” and a “long-overdue reckoning on racial justice”.
She said; “We have to be able to multitask, just like any parent or any human being does”.
Earlier Thursday, Time named basketball superstar LeBron James its Athlete of the Year for his achievements on and off the court.
The 35-year-old Los Angeles Lakers player was honored for battling voter suppression among Black citizens in a year when he won his fourth NBA title. K-Pop sensation BTS was named Entertainer of the Year.
Via AFP.
