If you're going to pick a Person of the Year, and the year you're stuck with is garbage pile known as 2016, you only have two choices. You can launch a nationwide hunt for a tree stump that looks a little like Jesus, or you can just pick the person who most obviously represents the rapid decay of western civilization and go home early.
Time Magazine doesn't have the budget for a nationwide stump search, so here we are.
Trump himself reacted precisely as you would expect him to react, by praising Time as a very important magazine and declaring it a great honor despite the offense of Time calling him, on the cover, President of the Divided States of America. This praise is a switcheroo from a year ago, when Trump was grousing over the choice of not-him even though he was never in the running and everyone was of the general opinion that western democracy would eventually lance him like the man-boil he was.
We can imagine Time encouraged him to take that portrait above as an unsubtle dig at the man. So let's imagine that. And let's give this one to Trump; he may have lost the popular vote by what's now becoming near-comical margins, he may still be unqualified and have the public demeanor of a rampaging toddler, but Der Pumpkinfuhrer is indeed a very, very important person now.
But it doesn’t mean anybody is going to stop making fun of him, and that is going to Drive. Him. Nuts. In the meantime, however, he should frame that Time cover and put it with his other images that adorn his office shrine. What the hell, he should probably frame both those covers.