You’ll Never Guess Who The Advocate’s Person Of The Year Is

The Advocate magazine has named its Person of the Year, and this time the choice is highly controversial.

Last night on MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” The Advocate’s Aaron Hicklin revealed to Lawrence O’Donnell their Person of the Year: Vladimir Putin.

Controversial?

You bet.

(And yes, that’s an intentional Hitler-esque mustache.)

LGBT activist and nephew of Harvey Milk, Stuart Milk, offered strong and intelligent criticism, as you can see in the video above.

Here’s how The Advocate’s Jeremy Lybarger begins the cover story:

“Imagine a boy who dreams of being a KGB officer
when everyone else wants to be a cosmonaut.”

This quote appears early in The Man Without a Face, Masha Gessen’s 2012 biography of Vladimir Putin. It’s as succinct and illuminating a characterization of the Russian president as you’re likely to find. The KGB, after all, perfected the thuggery, espionage, and aimless bureaucracy that are hallmarks of Putin’s regime. The agency’s crackdown on dissidents offered a blueprint for Putin’s own strongman excesses. That he aspired to such a career as a child tells us something useful about his psychopathology: This is a man hardwired to intimidate.

Nowhere is this tendency more apparent than in his crusade against LGBT Russians.

Responses on Twitter were mixed, and interestingly, almost entirely from media professionals:

LGBT activist and Blabbeando blogger Andrés Duque:

CNN’s Jake Tapper:

Actor, Writer, Director, Sinakhone Keodara:

Australian LGBT editor Elias Jahshan:

John Becker, Editor in Chief, The Bilerico Project:

Buzzfeed’s Chris Geidner:

Alvin McEwen, Holy Bullies author, blogger, and activist:

Finnish writer and researcher:

Canadian writer Jerome Stueart:

 

Image via The Advocate