Put your toys back in the stroller and admit defeat, Mr President –
or your increasingly sad and pathetic sore loser antics really will make
you Diaper Don
By Piers Morgan
Daily Mail
November 27, 2020
The worst shot I've ever played in golf came on an excruciatingly public stage.
It
happened two years ago at the world-famous Carnoustie course in
Scotland as I was competing in the prestigious televised Alfred Dunhill
Links Championship where, uniquely, amateurs get to play with
professionals in a tour event.
'And now, on the first tee, journalist and broadcaster
Piers MorganIt was 9am, it was cold, wet and windy,
and I was suffering from both the ravages of four consecutive days of
hard golf and a rather fierce hangover.
I
took out my driver, strode forward with all the confidence of an ageing
three-legged gazelle into a lion compound, and smashed my first shot of
the day low and hard straight into a small stone bridge 40 yards in
front of me.
The ball ricocheted off
the bridge at a sharp left right angle and flew at high speed towards
the newly renovated clubhouse, narrowly missing a window of the
restaurant where many top golf stars were having breakfast.
It
then rebounded back off the wall over the spectators, causing many to
shriek and dive for cover, and ended up close to where I was still
standing as I turned the air quietly blue with horrified profanity.
'Mr Morgan,' observed my wizened-faced old
caddy, 'I've been working at Carnoustie for 42 years, and I've never
seen anyone do that!'
I was mortified - and should have walked off the course there and then and gone home.
It was very clear that I was mentally and physically done, and I had no chance of winning anything.
Instead,
I battled on for five of the most embarrassing hours of my life,
shanking, air-shotting, slicing and five-putting my way to ignominious
sporting humiliation that rendered me a laughing-stock amongst the
knowledgeable Scottish golf fans who amassed in ever larger numbers to
have a giggle at my self-implosion.
The levels of my inner rage and indignation also rose in ever larger numbers, but I tried not to show it.
I
thought of this when I watched footage of President Trump playing a
round of Thanksgiving Day golf yesterday and hitting a tee shot into a
lake at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia.
'Oh shit' he exclaimed after playing the shot, closely followed by the words: 'I hate this fucking hole.'
Others around him chuckled, but Trump remained stony-faced.
He was absolutely furious.
And
he spent the rest of the day, supposedly a time for Americans to come
together and show each other kindness and generosity, spewing out his
fury on Twitter and at a fiery press conference at the White House, the
first he's conducted since the Election.
After
Trump repeatedly said the result was rigged, Reuters correspondent Jeff
Mason asked him the following very simple question: 'Sir, just to be
clear if the Electoral College votes for Joe Biden, will you concede?
It was a perfectly reasonable thing to ask, and Mason asked it in a perfectly respectful manner.
'Well, if they do,' Trump replied, 'they've made a mistake, because this election was a fraud… so no, I can't say that at all.'
When
Mason understandably then tried to ask his original question again,
Trump responded with venomous anger: 'Don't talk to me that way, you're
just a lightweight, don't talk to me that way, I'm the President of the
United States, don't ever talk to the President that way.'
Of
course, this is the same President of the United States who spends his
entire time abusing the media as 'Fake News' and hurling very personal
insults at any journalists like Mason who dare to hold him to account.
Trump's rage spilled over to social media
where he took aim at anyone and everyone from Fox News and Twitter –
both of whom have done so much to empower Trump - to Congresswoman
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and NFL stars who took the knee in solidarity.
'No
thanks!' he sniped at photos of two quarterbacks, Texans' Deshaun
Watson and the Lions' Matthew Stafford, kneeling on their respective
sidelines during the national anthem just before kickoff at Ford Field
in Detroit.
His mood won't have been
improved by the reaction to a photo of him sitting at a very small desk
during his White House presser, which led to the Twitter hashtag
#DiaperDon trending all night.
But in a way, the desk's dimensions were the perfect illustration of what's happening to Donald Trump.
Day by day, hour by hour, his presidency and power is being diminished.
And
the longer he goes on squealing about a 'rigged and fraudulent'
election, and the more he throws his toys out of the stroller about the
election being 'stolen' from him, the smaller and more ridiculous he
becomes.
The truth is that Trump lost the election fairly and squarely.
There's
been zero evidence of any mass fraud of the kind he keeps claiming, and
indeed, independent officials have declared this the safest and
best-run election of modern times.
So,
Trump's refusal to accept defeat is just the rumblings and grumblings of
a shockingly bad loser, and it is beginning to present a very real
danger to American democracy which depends entirely on election results
being honored.
As someone who likes him
personally and sees many qualities in him that his enemies refuse to
admit exist, it's increasingly sad and pathetic to watch.
I beseeched him a few days after the election to concede when it was obvious Trump had lost.
If he'd done so graciously, albeit through gritted teeth, I think he'd have made a lot of people feel better towards him.
But
instead, he's behaved like a spoiled toddler who's had his rattle taken
away and intends shrieking and shouting until he gets it back.
Smart
parents know the best way to treat such a little brat is to ignore
them, and that's increasingly what Joe Biden is doing as he calmly gets
on with the process of appointing his own administration and preparing
for government.
The more Biden does
this, the worse Trump behaves, probably, I suspect, because he can feel
the vestiges of power being sucked out of him and he hates it as much as
he hates hitting his golf ball into a lake.
Yesterday was a nadir for the President.
For him to spend Thanksgiving carrying on
like a spiteful deluded lunatic was even by his standards a ridiculous
and unedifying spectacle.
He's now
turned into me at Carnoustie two years ago – flailing and swinging away
in a desperate attempt to change the narrative, only the more he lashes
out, the worst it gets, and the louder people laugh at him.
The
cold hard reality is that come January 20, whether Trump wants to
concede or not, and regardless of whether he turns up at the
Inauguration, he will no longer be leader of the world and Joe Biden
will become President of the United States.
If
Trump's still inside the White House at that point, then Secret Service
agents will be forced to carry him out kicking and screaming like a big
baby and he really will be Diaper Don.
I
hope that doesn't happen, though there will be many praying it does so
they can gleefully stamp on the presidential grave of the man they love
to hate.
For the love of God, Mr President, grow up and concede.
