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Trump named Time Person of the Year (1 Viewer)

I'm ok with this, he probably is the man of the year, however I am aggravated by the 'Divided States of America' in the cover headline.

 
Can you explain why the cover headline "Divided States of America" aggravates you?
Because it's editorialization which undercuts their own premise by naming him POTY, and it's insulting to the name of the country.

eta - I'll expound on this a little more: "We" are the "United States of America". That's "Us". The United States was (were?) founded upon the idea that we, all of us individuals and all of the States, are free to disagree with each other. We were never meant to be wholly "united" in opinion, only in our freedom and commitment to each other and that idea.

 
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I'm honestly surprised Trump is acting so gracious about it.  When I saw the cover I assumed he'd flip out. That image is dark.  Like "movie character who spins around in his chair to reveal that he's been the evil villain all along" dark. I hate the guy as much as anyone and even I thought it was a bit much.

 
He has inherited the Divided States of America. He didn't create it.  If he can fix it and unite us again forget about Man of the Year, he goes straight to Mt. Rushmore.  

 
Because it's editorialization which undercuts their own premise by naming him POTY, and it's insulting to the name of the country.

eta - I'll expound on this a little more: "We" are the "United States of America". That's "Us". The United States was (were?) founded upon the idea that we, all of us individuals and all of the States, are free to disagree with each other. We were never meant to be wholly "united" in opinion, only in our freedom and commitment to each other and that idea.
And Trump campaigned on limiting those freedoms for some and capitalizing on/expanding our lack of commitment to each other.  I'm not sure I see the problem here.

Also it doesn't undercut the premise of the award. The award doesn't mean you did a lot of good, just that you did a lot. One of Trump's biggest "achievements" is dividing our population in a way we haven't been divided since at least the 1960s.

 
And Trump campaigned on limiting those freedoms for some and capitalizing on/expanding our lack of commitment to each other.  I'm not sure I see the problem here.

Also it doesn't undercut the premise of the award. The award doesn't mean you did a lot of good, just that you did a lot. One of Trump's biggest "achievements" is dividing our population in a way we haven't been divided since at least the 1960s.
Are you serious?  It was editorial and you just agree, so you don't see the problem.  And Trump didn't divide us.  We were already divided, you just didn't know it because Obama was in the White House and things seemed rosy to those on the liberal side of things.  Obama divided us as much or more than Trump has.

 
I'm honestly surprised Trump is acting so gracious about it.  When I saw the cover I assumed he'd flip out. That image is dark.  Like "movie character who spins around in his chair to reveal that he's been the evil villain all along" dark. I hate the guy as much as anyone and even I thought it was a bit much.
It's Time and the MSM. What to expect? 

Look, I hate Trump, too, and the media was so in the tank for Clinton, they're never recovering, post-truth narrative (uh, Dan Rather peddling this narrative on my Facebook feed is hilarious -- anybody?) or not.  

 
And Trump campaigned on limiting those freedoms for some and capitalizing on/expanding our lack of commitment to each other.  I'm not sure I see the problem here.

Also it doesn't undercut the premise of the award. The award doesn't mean you did a lot of good, just that you did a lot. One of Trump's biggest "achievements" is dividing our population in a way we haven't been divided since at least the 1960s.
So we're okay with editorialization? Just asking for a friend...

 
And Trump campaigned on limiting those freedoms for some and capitalizing on/expanding our lack of commitment to each other.  I'm not sure I see the problem here.

Also it doesn't undercut the premise of the award. The award doesn't mean you did a lot of good, just that you did a lot. One of Trump's biggest "achievements" is dividing our population in a way we haven't been divided since at least the 1960s.
The partisan myopia is strong with this one.

 
Are you serious?  It was editorial and you just agree, so you don't see the problem.  And Trump didn't divide us.  We were already divided, you just didn't know it because Obama was in the White House and things seemed rosy to those on the liberal side of things.  Obama divided us as much or more than Trump has.
:thumbup:

 
And Trump campaigned on limiting those freedoms for some and capitalizing on/expanding our lack of commitment to each other.  I'm not sure I see the problem here.

Also it doesn't undercut the premise of the award. The award doesn't mean you did a lot of good, just that you did a lot. One of Trump's biggest "achievements" is dividing our population in a way we haven't been divided since at least the 1960s.
That's just simply not true. Identity politics have been used quite heavily for quite a while now.

Black vs White

Poor vs Rich

Flyover States vs Urban Coastal Elite

North vs South

Male vs Female

Religious vs Non-Religious

These have been used as wedge issues to create voting blocks and create exploitable tension for decades and it's only gotten worse. To pin our current state on Trump is foolish. His success is a symptom of all of this, not the cause. 

 
Are you serious?  It was editorial and you just agree, so you don't see the problem.  And Trump didn't divide us.  We were already divided, you just didn't know it because Obama was in the White House and things seemed rosy to those on the liberal side of things.  Obama divided us as much or more than Trump has.
I suppose it's a ultimately a matter of opinion whether we're more or less divided.  But there are some facts on my side. I think if the blame was Obama's those numbers would have jumped prior to Trump's candidacy, not after it, and the victim totals wouldn't be increasing the most along the minority groups he specifically targeted during his campaign. Obviously I can't prove causation though, as much as common sense suggests it, so draw your own conclusions.

 
Are you serious?  It was editorial and you just agree, so you don't see the problem.  And Trump didn't divide us.  We were already divided, you just didn't know it because Obama was in the White House and things seemed rosy to those on the liberal side of things.  Obama divided us as much or more than Trump has.
We have been entrenched in our political ideologies since at least GWB first term.  This wasn't created by GWB, Obama or Trump they have all just played each side against each other.  I think the deep division started somewhere in the Clinton Administration, but can be found way back in our countries early days.  Anyway, that doesn't change that it is fair characterization by Time Magazine. I am not sure why it bothers you that Time Magazine editorializes, they are not a breaking news source, they are pretty much opinion on the news.

I think liberals like myself see Trump's brand of 'dividing the states' more dangerous because he has brought out some what we view as of the darkest parts of american back to the mainstream.  We see the parts someone like Obama brought out were more to expose people's prejudice.  Now I am not saying this is in fact what is happening, but this is the perspective on why I think we take Trump's divisional tone as more threatening.

 
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Well, legally, sure. But when your estate is the least valued estate on the block, one might want to reconsider its upkeep.  
If you're saying what I think you're saying- that news organizations should check their anti-Trump conclusions and opinions at the door to protect their worth- it's both disturbing and wrong.

Also Time has never pretended to be the Washington Post or the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, publications that (right wing protests aside) generally do a good job of isolating their opinions and biases in their editorial pages.  So I'm not sure what the problem is here.  They've been editorializing on covers and in cover stories forever.

 
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One can probably argue that Trump's approach to the election allowed people to come out from behind their rocks and act on their divisive feelings.  However, it's completely naive to think these feelings are new.  Anyone who's lived here in the south and midwest of this country for any period of time will tell you that racism and all these supposedly new found "phobias" since Trump has become President elect have been around forever.  We have a thinly veiled curtain of civility in this country.  If you take 5 minutes to look behind it, you'll see the ugly truth.  The difference between today and last year is the exposure of that truth which has always been there.  This country still has an incredibly long way to go in all these areas.

This election taught me a sobering lesson.  In short, we are content with brushing things under the rug and applying the "nothing to see here" approach.  Problem is, at some point it starts oozing out from under the rug in ways that can't be ignored and at that point it's 100 times worse to deal with when that happens.

 
And Trump campaigned on limiting those freedoms for some and capitalizing on/expanding our lack of commitment to each other.  I'm not sure I see the problem here.

Also it doesn't undercut the premise of the award. The award doesn't mean you did a lot of good, just that you did a lot. One of Trump's biggest "achievements" is dividing our population in a way we haven't been divided since at least the 1960s.
Yeah tbh I've never been comfortable with that premise either. Time does this and pretends they aren't exalting their POTY, they are. Here's it's almost like they're apologizing by undercutting Trump even as they put him on this very real pedestal. So they editorialize by making him POTY but then say plain as day 'he's a bad guy who has divided us.' It's annoying to me.

As for my point, we've never been united in opinion and we were never meant to be. That's stands for me but that's just my POV.

 
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While you guys try to convince me that Trump doesn't have any responsibility for further dividing Americans, here's a nice anniversary to consider:  Today is the one year anniversary of Trump proposing that we ban Muslims from entering the United States. That was on the heels of Trump refusing to reject the idea of a Muslim registry and seeming to imply that one was needed.

I'm sure there's examples of things Obama has said or done that are just as divisive as blatant religious discrimination, though, right?  I remember back in 2010, when Obama said we should have a registry of all the Southern Baptists and we should ban all Hindus from entering that United States.  Can you guys help me find a link to those stories? 

 
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And Trump campaigned on limiting those freedoms for some and capitalizing on/expanding our lack of commitment to each other.  I'm not sure I see the problem here.

Also it doesn't undercut the premise of the award. The award doesn't mean you did a lot of good, just that you did a lot. One of Trump's biggest "achievements" is dividing our population in a way we haven't been divided since at least the 1960s.
I'm going to have to disgree

didi he cause the incidents that led to the rise of violent protests with repect to the police shootings or was that decades of improper policing?

Was he the one who paid people to go to Trump rallies and instigate people  or was that  minions of HRC like Bob Creamer and Scott Foval?

Was he the one that edited the Zimmerman phone call to make it sound racist, or was that NBC? 

Did he invent the term "White Hispanic" or was that the MSM?

Did he spread the "hand up, don't shoot" or was that the MSM?

Did he displace lower class workers with a sub-minimum wage labor force or was that the greedy criminal business owners?

I could go on....

 
I'm going to have to disgree

didi he cause the incidents that led to the rise of violent protests with repect to the police shootings or was that decades of improper policing?

Was he the one who paid people to go to Trump rallies and instigate people  or was that  minions of HRC like Bob Creamer and Scott Foval?

Was he the one that edited the Zimmerman phone call to make it sound racist, or was that NBC? 

Did he invent the term "White Hispanic" or was that the MSM?

Did he spread the "hand up, don't shoot" or was that the MSM?

Did he displace lower class workers with a sub-minimum wage labor force or was that the greedy criminal business owners?

I could go on....
Setting aside the fact that some of this is nonsense (eg "white Hispanic" is based on how the census treats race and ethnicity, it's not an invention of the media) .. your premise is that because Trump didn't do everything that's ever been done to divide Americans, he didn't divide Americans? Come on.

 
Yeah tbh I've never been comfortable with that premise either. Time does this and pretends they aren't exalting their POTY, they are. Here's it's almost like they're apologizing by undercutting Trump even as they put him on this very real pedestal. So they editorialize by making he's POTY but then say plain as day 'he's a bad guy who has divided us.' It's annoying to me.

As for my point, we've never been united in opinion and we were never meant to be. That's stands for me but that's just my POV.
Time Person of the Year isn't a 'pedestal' of good.

Don't forget these winners:

1939: Joseph Stalin

1941: Franklin Delano Roosevelt

1957: Nikita Krushchev

1979: Ayatullah Khomeini

 
Time Person of the Year isn't a 'pedestal' of good.

Don't forget these winners:

1939: Joseph Stalin

1941: Franklin Delano Roosevelt

1957: Nikita Krushchev

1979: Ayatullah Khomeini
This does not need to be explained to me.

They don't intend to do it. I'm saying they do it anyway.

 
This does not need to be explained to me.

They don't intend to do it. I'm saying they do it anyway.


Yeah tbh I've never been comfortable with that premise either. Time does this and pretends they aren't exalting their POTY, they are. Here's it's almost like they're apologizing by undercutting Trump even as they put him on this very real pedestal. So they editorialize by making him POTY but then say plain as day 'he's a bad guy who has divided us.' It's annoying to me.

As for my point, we've never been united in opinion and we were never meant to be. That's stands for me but that's just my POV.
Then I don't understand why you think this designation of person of the year is this 'very real pedestal' and why the editorial contradicts that?  If you understand that POTY isn't a pedestal of good, what is to undercut?

 
If you're saying what I think you're saying- that news organizations should check their anti-Trump conclusions and opinions at the door to protect their worth- it's both disturbing and wrong.

Also Time has never pretended to be the Washington Post or the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, publications that (right wing protests aside) generally do a good job of isolating their opinions and biases in their editorial pages.  So I'm not sure what the problem is here.  They've been editorializing on covers and in cover stories forever.
The Times's own ombudsman/public editor recently bemoaned her own paper's liberal bias in a public series of articles/interviews. What on earth are you talking about? 

The real world, or a post-truth one?

 
One can probably argue that Trump's approach to the election allowed people to come out from behind their rocks and act on their divisive feelings.  However, it's completely naive to think these feelings are new.  
Completely agree!
I was having this discussion with my wife a couple days ago.  It's been a rude awakening for some apparently.  People felt as if we had made huge strides as a country.  As a matter of policy we have, but no amount of policy in the world is going to change the heart of a person.  That's not how we work as individuals.  The sad reality is, not many hearts have changed over the last 40-50 years when it comes to race relations and tolerance of people who are different from us.  Our laws and government policies CAN cover that reality to an extent, but not completely.

 
I was having this discussion with my wife a couple days ago.  It's been a rude awakening for some apparently.  People felt as if we had made huge strides as a country.  As a matter of policy we have, but no amount of policy in the world is going to change the heart of a person.  That's not how we work as individuals.  The sad reality is, not many hearts have changed over the last 40-50 years when it comes to race relations and tolerance of people who are different from us.  Our laws and government policies CAN cover that reality to an extent, but not completely.
I am okay though with making public expression of it so shameful that it hides away.  I think recently that shame has been lessened and IMO that is the problem with Trump giving cover to these views.

 
The Times's own ombudsman/public editor recently bemoaned her own paper's liberal bias in a public series of articles/interviews. What on earth are you talking about? 

The real world, or a post-truth one?
The thing with the Times ombudsman is getting panned by most observers.

And the point was that those publications at least attempt to isolate their bias to the opinion pages. TIME has never made that distinction, it's a different animal. Just randomly picking a year, say the year of my birth, there's covers criticizing military policy (presumably in SE Asia), calling Europe "America's new rival," taking those crazy Jesuits down a peg, praising the wonders and delights of life in Minnesota, and of course many shots at Nixon. This is not a new thing.

 
I was having this discussion with my wife a couple days ago.  It's been a rude awakening for some apparently.  People felt as if we had made huge strides as a country.  As a matter of policy we have, but no amount of policy in the world is going to change the heart of a person.  That's not how we work as individuals.  The sad reality is, not many hearts have changed over the last 40-50 years when it comes to race relations and tolerance of people who are different from us.  Our laws and government policies CAN cover that reality to an extent, but not completely.
I am okay though with making public expression of it so shameful that it hides away.  I think recently that shame has been lessened and IMO that is the problem with Trump giving cover to these views.
And that's fine as long as you understand it's really not doing anything but hiding it.  Personally, I don't see the point, especially if one's goal is to work towards a solution of getting rid of it.  The first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have a problem.  But to each his own I suppose.  And I agree that the shame has lessened and why it's out there in the open.  

 
Trump didn't win because of racism.  He won because the Democrats pushed policies that left behind a large portion of their base and they ran a ####ty candidate.

 
Trump didn't win because of racism.  He won because the Democrats pushed policies that left behind a large portion of their base and they ran a ####ty candidate.
Actually I think you are incorrect in why Trump won ( Democrats policies), but are correct in what didn't cause him to win (racism).

 
Trump didn't win because of racism.  He won because the Democrats pushed policies that left behind a large portion of their base and they ran a ####ty candidate.
The bolded is a popular fiction, but it's nevertheless a fiction:

The Dangerous Myth That Hillary Clinton Ignored the Working Class
 

But here is the troubling reality for civically minded liberals looking to justify their preferred strategies: Hillary Clinton talked about the working class, middle class jobs, and the dignity of work constantly. And she still lost.

She detailed plans to help coal miners and steel workers. She had decades of ideas to help parents, particularly working moms, and their children. She had plans to help young men who were getting out of prison and old men who were getting into new careers. She talked about the dignity of manufacturing jobs, the promise of clean-energy jobs, and the Obama administration’s record of creating private-sector jobs for a record-breaking number of consecutive months. She said the word “job” more in the Democratic National Convention speech than Trump did in the RNC acceptance speech; she mentioned the word  “jobs” more during the first presidential debate than Trump did. She offered the most comprehensively progressive economic platform of any presidential candidate in history—one specifically tailored to an economy powered by an educated workforce.

What’s more, the evidence that Clinton lost because of the nation’s economic disenchantment is extremely mixed. Some economists found that Trump won in counties affected by trade with China. But among the 52 percent of voters who said economics was the most important issue in the election, Clinton beat Trump by double digits. In the vast majority of swing states, voters said they preferred Clinton on the economy. If the 2016 election had come down to economics exclusively, the working class—which, by any reasonable definition, includes the black, Hispanic, and Asian working classes, too—would have elected Hillary Clinton president.
As for whether her failure to get that message across is her fault because as you say she was a #####y candidate, or our fault for being easily distracted by email nonsense and Trump tweets instead of looking at the issues, or some combination of both, is a matter of opinion.  But the idea that her policies were the problem is just not true.

 
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We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.

Perhaps she was just a bad communicator.

 
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We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.
That's a sound bite quote pulled out of context. You said "Democrats pushed policies that left behind a large portion of their base" The article and the links show that's clearly not the case.

And in any event, coal interests haven't been part of the Dems' base for many years. Obama lost West Virginia by almost 30 points in 2012.

 
That's a sound bite quote pulled out of context. You said "Democrats pushed policies that left behind a large portion of their base" The article and the links show that's clearly not the case.

And in any event, coal interests haven't been part of the Dems' base for many years. Obama lost West Virginia by almost 30 points in 2012.
They pushed climate change and trade policies that obliterated towns with no plan on rebuilding the job base.  Hillary didn't even have the decency to go out and talk to these people.

Either they didn't like her policies or they didn't believe her.

 
The thing with the Times ombudsman is getting panned by most observers.

And the point was that those publications at least attempt to isolate their bias to the opinion pages. TIME has never made that distinction, it's a different animal. Just randomly picking a year, say the year of my birth, there's covers criticizing military policy (presumably in SE Asia), calling Europe "America's new rival," taking those crazy Jesuits down a peg, praising the wonders and delights of life in Minnesota, and of course many shots at Nixon. This is not a new thing.
My birth year also. And with gusto! (Brando)

But more seriously, who are these "most" observers? Those with or without cognitive dissonance?

 
They pushed climate change and trade policies that obliterated towns with no plan on rebuilding the job base.  Hillary didn't even have the decency to go out and talk to these people.

Either they didn't like her policies or they didn't believe her.
You're pushing a narrative that the article and the links within it disprove pretty clearly.  Clinton won voters who said their #1 concern was the economy by double digits. She won non-white working class voters by enormous margins. There are detailed job plans linked in that article, directly contradicting what you say. It's fairly clear that there was something else at play here. IMO it's a variety of factors, including an unusual statistical anomaly- Trump won exactly what he needed in Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania with very little to spare while losing the popular vote by a much larger margin than any previous EC winner. But the simplistic narrative you're pushing here is a fiction.

 
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