Office Hours: Who would you select as person of the year (other than Elon Musk)?

Time magazine has named Elon Musk as its 2021 “Person of the Year,” calling him “the man who aspires to save our planet and get us a new one to inhabit.”

Oh, please.

This is the man who downplayed the pandemic — predicting in March 2020 that there would be “probably close to zero new cases” in the United States by the end of April, and that “the coronavirus panic is dumb.” As infections surged, he called quarantine measures “fascist” and demanded that officials return people’s “freedom.” He then kept his Tesla plant open in defiance of public health orders, with the result that over a hundred Tesla workers contracted COVID. They said the company covered up the outbreak. Then he fired workers after telling them they could take unpaid time off if they didn’t feel safe coming to work.

This is the man who, when the epidemic plunged millions of Americans into near poverty, railed against coronavirus relief packages — claiming government aid wasn’t “in the best interests of the people.” Yet he’s been benefiting from government aid for years. He got a cool $465 million low-interest loan from the Department of Energy in 2010 to help kickstart Tesla. His Nevada Gigafactory was launched with the promise of $1.3 billion in tax breaks over two decades. And so on.

This is also the man who threatened to rescind his employees’ stock options if they unionized. He broke 11 other labor laws by harassing pro-union employees. A court ruled that Musk and other company executives illegally sabotaged employee efforts to form a union -- harassing workers, passing out union pamphlets in the parking lot, banning employees from wearing pro-union T-shirts and buttons, repeatedly interrogating union organizers and eventually firing one of them, and distributing anti-union messages in tweets from Musk himself. Since 2010, he’s had at least 43 workers’ rights violations filed against his company.

Meanwhile, six women who worked for Musk’s Tesla are suing the carmaker for alleged sexual harassment and discrimination, adding to two similar suits filed in the past month. Meanwhile, Musk’s SpaceX employees are speaking out about what they describe as a culture of harassment at the rocket company.

He’s the richest person in the world who argues billionaires shouldn’t pay more taxes. He admits to taking no salary or bonus (he lives off his shares of stock) so pays little or no income tax. When Democrats proposed a billionaire tax he warned Americans that “eventually they run out of other people’s money and then they come for you.” When Bernie Sanders said the extremely wealthy should pay their fair share, he responded “I keep forgetting that you’re still alive.”

This is Time Magazine’s person of the year?

Look, I get it. America worships great wealth. It loves entrepreneurs. It celebrates mavericks. It extols rule-breakers. It reveres people who don’t give a rat’s ass. And it lauds ego-manics who combine all these qualities (it has even elected one President).

But was it really necessary for Time Magazine to honor one of them?

So here’s this week’s question: If it were up to you, who would you select as person of the year?

As usual, I’ll chime in around 10 am PT, 1 pm ET.

***

Chiming in now (and will as well in the comments): Time Magazine hasn’t always risen to a standard that most of us would consider “honorable” in naming their “Person of the Year,” considering that the magazine has in past years anointed Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump. As several of you point out, Time has never been interested in the definition of honor. It just wants to sell more copies and attract more eyeballs.

But Time’s peculiar annual rite does at least give us an opportunity to examine the important difference between notoriety and honor by asking ourselves who really deserves to be honored in these trying times.

Already today, many of you have offered some superb examples.

Understandably, most of you want to honor politicians. I can tell you from personal experience that the world of politics is a hard one. The past year has been especially grueling. The honorable ones deserve our gratitude.

I agree with Oscar that Liz Cheney deserves a nod (although her normal politics are to the right of Attila). With great courage and determination, she has shown her loyalty to the American system of government — in sharp contrast with most of her Republican colleagues in the House and Senate. (I’d add Adam Kinzinger here as well.)

Joan and several others nominate Nancy Pelosi, who I think is hugely deserving. Pelosi is probably the most gifted politician of our era. She has navigated America’s perilous political currents with deftness and calm.

Some of you have put forward Joe Biden, and I can understand why. He has demonstrated steadfastness and resilience during this Republican chaos — although in coming months I hope Biden will invest more of his time and energy in securing voting rights, and protecting American democracy (which means getting rid of the filibuster or at least carving out a voting rights exception).

A few of you have nominated Stacey Abrams, who hopefully will be the next governor of Georgia, and whose extraordinary gifts as a political organizer deserve our abiding gratitude.

Mary Ann suggests Elizabeth Warren, Katie Porter, and the Squad – all of whom continue to display remarkable courage and tenacity. As long as we’re talking about courage and tenacity, let’s add Bernie Sanders to the honors list.

All these people on the front lines of this perilous period of American politics deserve to be honored, and I could add several more.

But when thinking about the past year, it seems to me that the people who deserve the greatest honors are those who have been on the front lines of the pandemic and the economy – nurses, hospital orderlies, emergency-room doctors, warehouse workers, meatpacking workers, delivery workers, teachers, firefighters, and all others whose work has been essential.

Many of them have risked their lives so the rest of us could survive this past year (and the year before). Many are paid little and work long hours in poor working conditions. Few get the respect they deserve. (Some are now on strike, for good reason.)  

My brother-in-law and sister-in-law are nurses. I’ve been astonished and humbled by what they’ve seen and done. Their care and sacrifice -- and that of hundreds of thousands of people like them -- are in sharp contrast to the bombastic selfishness and mean-spiritedness of the Donald Trumps, Elon Musks, Mitch McConnells, Joe Manchins, Tucker Carlsons, and Marjorie Taylor Greenes who dominate the national stage. Such megalomaniacs too often blind us to the great good that the vast number of unsung heroes continue to do.  

So my person of the year is the worker on the front lines. Let us not only honor him or her with our words in this forum, but also express our gratitude directly to them whenever we can, and stand in solidarity with their efforts to get better pay and working conditions.  

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