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Opinion: Trump’s ‘Sore Loser Syndrome’ is spreading throughout the Republican Party
Opinion by Austin Sarat, opinion contributor
• 13h • 5 min read
It once was an article of faith that American politicians, on both sides of the aisle, would act like good losers and graciously electoral defeat. They would concede publicly, even if they grumbled privately about election results.
After the closely fought and contested 2000 presidential election, Vice President Al Gore offered an example. On Dec. 13, 2000, Gore told the nation, “I accept the finality of the outcome, which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College. And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.” ...............................
This is not to say that there have never been challenges or false accusations of election fraud or chicanery. There have been. But they were more the exception than the rule. And they never have been the stock and trade of an entire political party.
How times have changed.
We know what happened in 2020. We also know that Donald Trump has already refused to say unequivocally that he will accept the 2024 election result. As the former president said in a Time magazine interview last month, “If we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election.”
That is bad enough, but Trump is not alone. The cancer of election denialism is metastasizing and fast becoming a key part of the Republican brand.
It looks like 2020 may have been “a dress rehearsal” for 2024.
Today, refusing to say whether they will accept the 2024 election results has become a staple among Republican leaders seeking favor with Trump and his MAGA followers. This reflects a political branding strategy and a distinctive psychological style called “sore loser syndrome.”
As one commentator describes it, “This condition is reportedly characterized by exhibiting extreme anger; denying responsibility for a defeat while blaming others; and ‘acting out’ which may include violent acts against those considered responsible for what is deemed an undeserved, unfair negative outcome of a competition.”
“Losers,” another says, “are more aggressive than winners on average. And that makes sense — if your rival outperforms you, you must resort to aggression to try and stop them.”
A third student of sore losers explains, “Someone who is a sore loser may be merely spoiled.”
Sound familiar?
As we prepare for the 2024 election, psychologists remind us that coming to terms with loss is a sign of maturity and psychic strength. But it takes work.
Things that people need to do to prepare for losing include anticipating having “untrue thoughts” like “the other side cheated” and not giving in to them. They need to connect with others who also feel the loss but are not sore losers. And they need to remember that bigger things than losing are at stake and focus on the importance of those bigger things. ..........................
Leaders of both parties owe it to our democracy “to speak out against any attempts to undermine the integrity of our election system and undermine public confidence in whoever is declared the winner.” In everything they do, as John McCain said, they need to call on their colleagues and followers to attend to the hard work of democratic governance, namely “find(ing) the necessary compromises, to bridge our differences.”
Sore losers can’t, and won’t, do that.
Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor Jurisprudence & Political Science at Amherst College.
Opinion: Trump’s ‘Sore Loser Syndrome’ is spreading throughout the Republican Party (msn.com)
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