Here’s something to think about. Half the people who have ever run for president – lost.

In other words, losing isn’t all that big a surprise. One or the other of them’s going to do it. As far as I can tell part of today’s ongoing furor is the idea that Trump couldn’t POSSIBLY have lost, so the whole thing must have been rigged!

A lot of times when such cries arise, they stem from wishful thinking. Someone WANTS it to be true, and so therefor it MUST be true.

Other times it just means you need to get out more. Pressured (and even commanded) by those who profit from hosing gasoline on the fire, we have increasingly sorted and segregated ourselves in our worship, living patterns, news sources, schooling, and even entertainment. If your person lost, you may be shocked, because EVERYBODY was in favor of him or her, so it couldn’t be possible. The reality is, most of us have just been spending time with our own crowd, and didn’t recognize how passionately the other folks feel… or how many of them there are.

Our second president, John Adams, lost when he ran for re-election. So did Martin Van Buren, who in many ways was the founder of our party system. So did Millard Fillmore. So did Grover Cleveland. THEODORE ROOSEVELT. So did William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George Herbert Walker Bush.

To be in with there John Adams and Theodore Roosevelt is to be in very exalted company! No shame there! Hardly anyone can say it! It’s something to BRAG about!

Trump is part of yet another select group: the five men who lost their elections, but had to go in through the back door to the White House anyway, because of the idiocy of our electoral college system. Rutherford B. Hayes announced right from the start that he would not run again. (Being wounded THREE TIMES in the Civil War perhaps conferred a certain perspective to Hayes.)

John Quincy Adams, Benjamin Harrison, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump all went to the well a second time, after being rejected the first time around. In all of our 230-year history, Bush II is the only president who ever pulled that off.

Losing a presidential election puts you in with war heroes like Bob Dole, John Kerry, and John McCain; statemen like Adlai Stevenson, Barry Goldwater, and Charles Evans Hughes. American titans such as Daniel Webster, Stephen A. Douglas, William Jennings Bryan (three times!) and Henry Clay (FOUR times!!!!) all failed to make the mark. Even with his single term, Trump beats them all. They never got to the White House at all.

So, we’ve had 45 presidents in our history. Eight of them died in office, leaving 37. Five more declined to run again, for various reasons, leaving 32. And 14 of those 32 lost their bids for a second (or third) term. In other words, out of our 45 presidents, only 19 ever won re-election. (The numbers don’t quite seem to add up because TR won one and lost one.)

Which means that if you become president, you’re most likely NOT to get re-elected. For those who lost the election but got in by the electoral college, only one out of five has ever won re-election. So Trump, disappointed though he understandably is, has a LOT of company. And some of them were truly great Americans. Losing the election is a sore disappointment, but it’s no shame.