Donald Trump Confronts a New Label: Loser

“I win, I win, I always win. In the end I always win,” Donald Trump once said. Now, though, for the first time in his life, in a public and historic way, he has lost.

As he has so relentlessly in the past, Trump is fighting against being tagged with a label that he has considered toxic to his brand. He has refused to concede. “The simple fact is this election is far from over,” he said in a statement just after the election was called. He promised to fight the results in court, alleging, without evidence, that a massive electoral fraud had robbed him of victory. But his talent for recasting reality to his advantage was incapable of overcoming a statistical truth not only accepted but dictated by the majority of the nation. He lost.