In the least surprising news of 2024, Donald Trump is Time’s Person of the Year.
For nearly a century, the magazine’s senior editors have huddled in a musty boardroom to settle on an annual winner. Adolf Hitler? Dwight Eisenhower? The Pope? Ronald Reagan? Mark Zuckerberg? Greta Thunberg?
Some years, with no clear “Person,” Time got conceptual: The Inheritor (1966), American Women (1975), The Computer (1982), The Endangered Earth (1988), The Silence Breakers (2017).
This year was a no-brainer. Unless Elon Musk impregnated a Martian, the president-elect was a shoo-in. Trump loves the annual issue so much that he once printed phoney covers with his smiling mug that he displayed at his golf courses next to engraved trophies he did not win.
But love him or hate him, this is a comeback for the ages. Trump started 2024 in a courthouse, sidestepped the Big House and is headed to the White House.
I want to weep inside an outhouse. But no point in denying this unstoppable force of nature. This was Time’s easiest editorial decision in history.
I bet the magazine scrapped this year’s meeting and hit up a pub where they may or may not have bumped into Pete Hegseth. Then they asked lawyers if putting Kash Patel on a future cover might mitigate the risk of this conspiratorial nutjob imprisoning journalists should he lead the FBI.
I’m just glad Trump has no say in who runs private organizations. Or PETA would be handed to Ted Nugent as Marjorie Taylor Greene takes over OpenAI: “These invisible robots must talk smack about Laura Loomer and teach our kids about Jewish space lasers.”
But since I’m a glass half-full person, let’s accentuate the positive today.
“Person of the Year” is the kind of glowing media attention that really soothes Trump. It softens his “enemy of the people” bombast. It dampens his fight instincts. It almost makes him seem human.
You know what didn’t happen during Trump’s interview with Time? He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t threaten anyone. He didn’t ridicule Rosie O’Donnell or Justin Trudeau. He didn’t throw anything or demand to know when I lost my virginity, as Gary Busey once did when I was trying to interview him. Trump was reflective, softened, subdued, thoughtful … likeable.
“It’s sad in a way,” he said, of his victory. “It will never happen again.”
Wow. Is that Donald Trump or the Dalai Lama?
Will this kinder, gentler Trump 2.0 start to glitch once he takes office and morphs into Deportation Man or the Tariff Sheriff? Sure. But what if the world just kept feting him with awards and honours? What if all past criticism was replaced with red carpets and cultural flattery? What if we celebrated Trump into submission?
I’m reminded of the time he was up for an Emmy during “The Apprentice.” He was so sure he’d win, he stood up before the envelope was opened and then sat down when his name was not called. He has hated the “rigged” awards since.
So give him an Emmy next year. Hell, give him every Emmy. A man surrounded by golden statuettes will be too distracted to abandon Ukraine. Give him an Oscar. Give him a Michelin Star. Give him the Turing, Copley, Kyoto, Kavli, Harvey, Fields, Humboldt …
Give him the Japan Prize. Or give him Japan and throw in Iceland.
Tell T-R-U-M-P he will be crowned champ at the 2025 Spelling Bee.
Give him a Grammy. According to Time, a 2,000-song playlist Trump curated includes James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” and ABBA’s “The Winner Takes It All.”
Those two songs are superior to 95 per cent of this week’s Billboard 100.
Give Trump the Booker Prize. Who cares if he doesn’t read? Give him the Millennium Technology Prize. Who cares if he thinks string theory is a fancy pasta or wearable tech is a flashing bow-tie?
Trump loves golf more than he loves Melania. Fine, he loves ketchup more than he loves Melania. Give him the Wanamaker Trophy. And one of those green jackets from the Masters. Customize it with a phoenix insignia of a defiant bird rising triumphantly from the ashes while clutching a putter in one talon and rocking a bedazzled red hat
Cancel the Super Bowl and send the Vince Lombardi Trophy to Mar-a-Lago, to be delivered by the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders and Stormy Daniels. He’ll enjoy that. Taylor Swift? Please write a song about Trump. But not one of those mean breakup ones.
Want to avoid war with Iran? Give Trump a Nobel Peace Prize this weekend. Create a new category so Truth Social can snag a Pulitzer. Trump did well with Black and Latino voters? Terrific. Give him an ALMA, a BET and a prime time fawn-a-thon with Oprah.
Donald Trump loves to be loved. Start the clock and break out the awards.
Pop culture has four years to save us all.
