Sore loser [ sawr loo-zer ] a person who is habitually angered, irritated, or annoyed when they do not win something or gain a desired advantage

How many of us can remember the kid who would always whine that he had been cheated out of victory by the opposing team? Maybe he was safe at home or his line drive was fair, not foul, or he had ticked the pitch, not missed it. As Paul Simon once sang “There must be fifty ways to claim victory against the cheaters who said you lost.” Maybe he didn’t say it exactly that way.

I remember one kid, his name was Terrence, I believe, who would end most of our stickball games with “Not fair. You cheaters. You didn’t win; you cheated” et cetera.  I can still see Terence standing on the curb, where third base was, whining that he was safe, then wailing, then yelling, until we all took our stick and rubber ball and went home.  It’s funny that I don’t remember how we won, just that  a sore loser had made an issue of it. The same sore loser in every disputed game.

If you remember that sore loser in your life, put Donald Trump’s head on him or her and see how pathetic he (Trump) looks. He refused to concede ANY loss, not just the disputable ones, like Al Gore’s loss to George Bush,  a real cliff-hanger.  Mr. Trump actually had the audacity to predict ANY of his election losses were due to cheating. He predicted cheating BEFORE the election. I can’t remember a sore loser in my life having that much arrogance.

Some famous sports sore losers I culled from the Internet include John McEnroe, Tonya Harding and Conor McGregor. I remember McEnroe throwing fits on specific calls before the tennis match was over and sometimes he actually won, so maybe he was not a definitive sore loser. He definitely thought he had won the point, however, and was quite the baby in disputing it.

There is one internet site that collected historical sore losers at https://miamivalleytoday.com/sore-losers-throughout-american-history/

It is amazing how many Presidents were winners in one instance, but losers in others. They were not good losers, however. Among the early sore losers were John Adams, Andrew Jackson, and John Quincy Adams.  The Adams tandem, father and son, threw only a momentary fit by boycotting the subsequent inauguration. Andrew Jackson took it to the next level:

• Andrew Jackson. Talk about a guy who hated to lose. Jackson was incensed by the deal between Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams that made Adams president in 1824. He called Clay “The Judas of the West” and asked, “Was there ever witnessed such bare-faced corruption in a country before?” He was so angry that when he was elected president in 1828, he publicly snubbed President Adams, which led to …[ see entry on John Quincy Adams]

This series of consecutive Presidents who whined after losing could be called “The Era of Sore Losing.” It suggests that sore losing could be contagious or genetically passed down from father to son.  It is possible the sore losing gene exists in Donald Trump’s family. His father, Fred, did not take losing well and hired a fixer, Roy Cohn, to change outcomes in court.  Eric and  Don Jr. are active members of the Sore Losers club, so we can see some genetic predisposition there.

Interesting that, other than Tonya Harding,  all these sore losers are men. No doubt some women can make their own female nominations.

It is funny to see adults joining the “Sore Losers” club, but Donald Trump has turned membership in this club to a dangerous art. He manages to recruit others to support his tantrums. He believes he can change the reality of losing to “cheating” and has convinced half the Republican Party he is right. It may be debatable how many are actually sore losers, because their club membership seems to be motivated by political advantage. Who can tell?

What is most dangerous is how the reality of losing has altered the perceptions of one third of the country. It borders on mass hypnosis.

Can Sore Losing be a cultural delusion? Melanie Yingst, the author of “Sore Losers Throughout History” (see above: https://miamivalleytoday.com/sore-losers-throughout-american-history/) believes the South practiced the art of winning while losing the Civil War. Historically we call it “The Lost Cause.”

Heather Cox Richardson has most recently studied how the “Lost Cause” continues to influence our culture today [https://global.oup.com/academic/product/how-the-south-won-the-civil-war-9780190900908?cc=us&lang=en&].

Is it true that generations of southern White people have continued to cherish the illusion that the South won? This suggests a mass cultural delusion.

When sore losing becomes a mass delusion, then it is truly dangerous. We are probably at that juncture in American history. We have reached the crossroads where “sore losing” is no joke. It borders on mass delusion, reality unhinged. That is not a funny prospect.