Thread by @JoshuaCypess

1/ That Tom "Spygate/Deflategate/QuackMedicine" Brady doesn't shake hands when he loses is predictable. It's the hallmark of cheaters. If someone refuses to shake hands, they're signaling they reject the concept of rules.

https://twitter.com/ThatBlitzGuy/status/1331102715578101762?s=03

2/ Gopnik from Nov 14 analyzes this concept beautifully: "A handshake is expected because it demonstrates your commitment to the rules of the game."

He's referring to Trump's (ym'sh) refusal to concede, which violates not the norm but the *premise*

newyorker.com/news/daily-com…

3/ "Graciously accepting the outcome, however painful, is not a norm of baseball; it is a premise of baseball—without it, the point of playing becomes lost."

Sports is a model for life. Cheating & grace in both are signs of character

Screenshot of more key passages:

4/ Gopnik ends the article with this summary: "Being a good loser isn’t a norm or a nicety of democracy. It’s a premise and a principle. People who ignore the handshake are usually also the same people who go on to try and fix the game. Bad sportsmanship is a warning of worse."

5/ This is why I go after Brady so often: cheaters ruin the entire premise of the system, and we can learn who enables it as well. The NFL commissioner destroyed Spygate evidence & enables the ruin of the system; just like Ford's pardon of Nixon

twitter.com/search?q=%22br…

6/ And an ancillary point that I harp on often: cheating ruins data & thus the notion of cause & effect. So many election analyses of 2000 & 2016 rest on the idea that [something] indicates the POTUS winner without recognizing those were stolen elections

7/ We can't say "2nd quarter economic indicators will predict the winner" when incorporating 2000 data! Add onto it 2020's combination of Facebook/FoxNews & post-VRA suppression & the data is corrupted by cheating.

Ultimately: look for handshakes. It's a sign of ethics.

8/ @threadreaderapp please unroll.

@threader_app please compile.

9/ Follow-up by @ScottKacsmar

This is not a new thing.

https://twitter.com/ScottKacsmar/status/1331130599009087488?s=20

10/ Follow up by @KyleBrandt about Brady's petulance. From the NFL network, no less

https://twitter.com/KyleBrandt/status/1331228542823264257?s=03

PS 1/ I believe the original thread has been messed up somehow, so I will try to resend to the threaders.

@threadreaderapp please unroll.

@threader_app please compile.