Marc Fisher: We already know what Donald Trump does when he loses: He acts like it never happened.
Much of this has already been chronicled in the press this year, but Marc Fisher sums up the case before Election Day.
[url]https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/11/03/what-does-donald-trump-do-when-he-loses-he-acts-like-it-never-happened/?postshare=6791478187283468&tid=ss_tw[/url]
When Donald Trump loses, he lashes out, assigns blame and does whatever it takes to make a defeat look like a win. When that isnt plausible, he pronounces the system rigged victory wasnt possible because someone put in the fix.
In a roller-coaster career in which glittering buildings and a flamboyant lifestyle have been tempered by bankruptcies and failed ventures, Trump has consistently fought often successfully to recast each defeat as proof of his strategic savvy. He has reacted to failure by exploding in anger and recrimination, then moving on to very different ventures, though always in arenas where he can vie for public admiration.
Trump calls defeats blips. Losing the race for the most powerful job on the planet is no ones idea of a blip, and if that happens, Trump is highly unlikely to slip away and accept life as a historical footnote, as Michael Dukakis did; to live out his golden years as a respected elder statesman, as Bob Dole has done; or to consider some other form of government service, as John Kerry did.
Psychologists who study how sports fans shield themselves from the pain of their favorite teams defeats use the term CORFing cutting off reflected failure to describe a defense mechanism by which fans separate themselves from loss by reframing their relationship to the team. We lost becomes they lost.
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