Donald Trump’s scurrilous campaign to discredit the U.S. electoral process put us in mind of Aesop — specifically, one of Aesop’s fables, expressed in verse in the Nestlings Press book Aesop, ASAP:

The Fox and the Grapes

A fox in urgent need to dine

Saw grapes suspended from a vine.

He jumped, and jumped, and came so close,

But could not reach them. So, morose

And running quickly out of power,

He griped, “Ah well, those grapes were sour.

They’re hardly worth the effort I

Would have to make to jump that high.”

When labours prove of little use,

Some seize on any weak excuse.