Hillary Clinton can't catch a break in these waning months of 2016.

First, she lost the TIME Magazine 2016 Person of the Year to President-elect Donald Trump. Now, she's losing awards that don't even exist.

In an op-ed from The Hill columnist Brent Budowsky, the Democrats should create a new award "Person of the Year for Democrats," and give it to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

Who had the most impact on Democrats in 2016? Who had the most impact on American society in 2016? Whose work will have the most impact on the Democratic Party and America as a whole in the long term?

Budowsky's criteria for giving the imaginary award to Sanders over Clinton, despite the fact that she was the first woman to be a major party nominee for the presidency, are as follows:Sanders, who ran for president as a Democrat and caucuses with Democrats in the Senate, is technically still an Independent. That's a tremendous slap in the face of Hillary.

Despite his age and low name recognition when he first announced his presidential run, Bernie quickly rose to superstardom, garnering praise from Democrats, blue-collar workers, and millennials for his message.

Over the course of the campaign, Trump and Bernie were often compared for their populist platforms, yet sharply distinct rhetoric.

"Unlike the winner of the TIME award," Budowsky writes with an obvious shot to Trump. "The impact of Sanders was positive and good for Democrats and America. He inspired supporters to participate in our democratic process, which makes America a better place by bringing more good people to active political engagement."

He continued, "By the end of 2016, Sanders had expanded his influence to supporting other progressives across the nation. He inspired the creation of a new group, Our Revolution, which supports progressive candidates and battles for progressive causes."

At this juncture, Sanders has far greater influence on the Democratic party than Hillary Clinton, and probably will for the foreseeable future. Sanders brand of progressivism resonated strongly with voters, despite the fact that he didn't win as many votes as Clinton during the primaries (the DNC and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz can be blamed for that).

The Democrats would've been better off if they nominated a populist like Bernie Sanders. They may not have won the election, but at least it would've been closer than the Electoral College loss that Clinton suffered (despite winning the popular vote). At least Bernie had a message, whereas Clinton's campaign theme was all reactionary to Trump.

Yet, what's missing for Democrats that Republicans seem to have tapped into is developing and cultivating young millennial leadership within their party. That's the wave of the future, not a 75-year-old Democratic socialist from Brooklyn.

But give yourself a hand, Bernie. You'll be hailed as a prophet, one day.