A Good Loser

      “For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against our name,
He writes – not that you won or lost – But HOW you played the Game.”
Grantland Rice

I determined to lay this election to rest, but a late development prompts me again to weigh in, hopefully for the last time.

When I lost at Old Maid or Chinese Checkers, I cried.  Mama said, ”You have to be a good loser.”  I responded, “Yeah!  I’m supposed to say yippee, yippee!  I lost!” 

As always, Mama was right.  But, the vernacular of her era and culture, “be a good loser,” left a bad taste in my mouth.  I was still a “loser!”  It turns out there are more palatable, realistic and accurate, means to frame this losing business.  It’s not about “losers” or “winners.”  It’s about sportsmanship!  Being a “good sport!”

I can’t speak of Mama’s era.  But today, from high school to the NBA, from Little League to the World Series, after the last out, the final buzzer, players who, seconds earlier, locked in combat, give chest-bumps, high-fives, pats on the back, even hugs.  Some years back, when an American Presidential election was tallied, the tradition of a losing candidate calling to concede and congratulate the winner was born.  After the new President’s inauguration, on the White House steps, the departing President and First Lady greet the incoming First Couple.  Sadly, before and on January 20, 2021, these wonderful and civil gestures, this sportsmanship, may not happen.

Currently, Joe Biden holds 290 electoral votes and will get Georgia’s 16 for 306.  Donald Trump will add North Carolina’s 15 to 217 for 232.  Given Joe’s 77.1 million against Donald’s 72.0 million popular vote, the former Vice President enjoys a 5.1 million popular vote lead.  Nonetheless, might legal trickery swing the results?

Donald has long since made clear, if he does not win reelection he’ll fight!  Voters be damned!  Any notion of “be a good sport,” sportsmanship, gracefully and graciously conceding, is in not in Donald’s playbook.  Writing a sad and tragic epitaph for his Presidency, Donald J. Trump will take “We The People” to court!

I really do not want to hit the man when he’s down, but for any who may not have been paying attention, or still “don’t get it,” reminders of why the majority of voters rejected Donald Trump may prove instructive.  We needn’t trust Fake News, three dozen mental health professionals, or MSNBC.  Listen to the man.

• “Obama tapped my phone.”
• Mexico will pay to build The Wall U.S. for which taxpayers have since forked up $15 billion.
• Attendance at my inauguration ranks among the largest in history.  Photos show otherwise.
• Despite even Republican failing to find evidence of support, Hillary’s crimes are “worse than Watergate.”
• America’s military has not had a pay raise in ten years.  It has, every year.
• “I’m a stable genius.”
• We should buy Greenland.  Its not for sale.
• I am “King of Israel . .  .  the chosen one.”
• My healthcare plan (which Mitch McConnell had never heard of) is far superior to Obama-care.
• Following a campaign photo-op visit with Kim Jong-un, a claim that the Obama Administration’s “begging for a meeting” with North Korean dictator was rebuffed.  Before the Senate Committee On Foreign Relations, Obama’s Special Representative for North Korea, Glyn Davies, made clear that such an overture was never considered.   
• Presidential Dad, Fred Trump, was born in a “very wonderful place in Germany.”  Pop drew first breath in the Bronx.
• Facing scientific proof of global warming since the Industrial RevolutionTrump smiled, “It will cool down:”
• Thinking of giving himself a Medal of Honor: “awarded to recognize U.S. military service members who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor.” (my emphasis) Narcissism on steroids!
• Journalist with a three decades untarnished record, Jeffrey Goldberg, reports Donald calling members of our Military Services “losers” and “suckers.”
• And now COVID-19:
• We have it “under control.”
• A few cases, will disappear like a miracle.
• Churches packed shoulder to shoulder, Americans “rearing to go” by Easter.
• A vaccine “very soon.”
• As deaths and cases break daily records, “We are rounding,” and rounding, and rounding, the turn, i.e. Trump’s team is going in circles.
• After the election we won’t hear of COVID-19.  Tell Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, other West Wingers and tens-of-thousands diagnosed since the election.
• “If you count the legal votes, I easily win.  If you count the illegal votes they can try to steal the election from us.”  In two weeks since the election, no hint, no grain of evidence whatsoever suggesting a single illegal vote was cast.

Random rambling of an irrational, frightened mind.

Now refusing to concede and specious litigation against the Will of The People. There is no difference whatsoever in six-year-old Dean crying over not winning at Checkers and six-year-old Donald throwing a  tantrum over not winning an election. Be a good sport, sportsmanship, stepping back with grace and dignity are not in the man’s nature.

Which brings us back to Grantland Rice.  How might the One Great Scorer write against Donald J. Trump’s name?

How about?  Like you, Donald John Trump played to the very best of his ability.

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Take heart Donald, despite defeat in the 2020 Presidential election, “the greatest infomercial in political history,” leading to an accidental President, may end up being your most profitable investment ever.