His pining for the award goes back further than that, though. In 2014, he retweeted three people who said that he should have won, despite not having done anything particularly newsworthy. In 2013, a similar retweet.

And then, hallelujah, the dream came true. On Wednesday, Time gave Trump the award — slightly jarring given covers on which he was featured as Election Day approached.

Now, we don't want to diminish Trump's achievement (particularly given that Trump complained about The Post's coverage of him while celebrating the announcement on the “Today” show), but it's worth pointing out: There was no way he wasn't going to win the award once he won the election.

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Since 1976, every president-elect has been named Person of the Year save one: George H.W. Bush. In 2004 and 2012, when the incumbent president won, that president was the Person of the Year, too.

What's more, Trump had another advantage. The vast majority of Time magazine Persons of the Year have been not only men and not only white men, but white men who gained acclaim through politics.

In fairness, white male politicians won a lot more back in the early years of the contest. (That includes two wins for Joseph Stalin and one for Adolf Hitler back in the 1930s and 1940s.) In recent years — perhaps in an effort to goose sales, a cynic might suggest — Time has increasingly featured abstract groups or concepts as Person of the Year. We all remember 2006 when “you” won (also meaning me, thank you, thank you), but probably the furthest afield the award has gone was in 1982 when “The Computer” won, which is just idiotic.