New York: US President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris have been named by the prestigious TIME magazine as ‘2020 Person of the Year’. The two have been chosen for changing the American story. They have showed that the forces of empathy are greater than the furies of division and sharing a vision of healing in a grieving world. Kamala Harris incidentally is the first Indian-origin person to become the US vice-president.
TIME named the Democratic leaders for its annual prestigious honour. It chose them over other finalists – frontline healthcare workers, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr Anthony Fauci, the Movement for Racial Justice and US President Donald Trump.
“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, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are TIME’s 2020 Person of the Year,” the magazine said in a statement
“If Donald Trump was a force for disruption and division over the past four years, Biden and Harris show where the nation is heading: a blend of ethnicities, lived experiences and worldviews that must find a way forward together if the American experiment is to survive,” the publication added.
TIME named Fauci, the frontline health workers and racial justice organisers ‘2020 Guardians of the Year’, who ‘put themselves on the line to defend the ideals sacred to democracy’. CEO of conferencing platform ‘Zoom’ Eric Yuan has been named as TIME’s ‘Businessperson of the Year’.
South Korean boy band BTS was named ‘Entertainer of the Year’ and American basketball player LeBron James as ‘Athlete of the Year’.
TIME said it is ‘noteworthy’ that a year after Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was named ‘Person of the Year’, the youngest person ever for the honour, it chose 78-year-old Biden, one of the oldest persons selected for the annual honour.
“Biden calls himself a bridge to a new generation of leaders, a role he embraced in choosing Kamala Harris, 56, the first woman on a winning presidential ticket, daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother,” TIME said.
The publication added that Biden had the vision, set the tone and topped the ticket. “But he also recognised what he could not offer on his own, what a 78-year-old white man could never provide: generational change, a fresh perspective and an embodiment of America’s diversity. For that, he needed Harris, California Senator, former district attorney and state attorney general, a biracial child of immigrants whose charisma and tough questioning of Trump administration officials electrified millions of Democrats,” the magazine said.
TIME noted that the US vice-president has never before been a woman, or Black, or Asian American. “I will be the first, but I will not be the last,” Harris said in an interview to ‘TIME’. “That’s about legacy, that’s about creating a pathway, that’s about leaving the door more open than it was when you walked in,” she added.
‘TIME’ said Biden and Harris together offered ‘restoration and renewal in a single ticket. And America bought what they were selling: after the highest turnout in a century, they racked up 81 million votes and counting, the most in presidential history, topping Trump by some seven million votes and flipping five battleground states,” it said.