Trump Takes On a Farmer, and the Farmer Wins

New York's bloviator-in-chief has landed ignobly on the losing end of a couple of recent elections. Yes, as you have probably figured out, the reference is to Donald J. Trump.

First, there was President Obama's re-election last month, a most unwelcome development for Mr. Trump, who never fully released on the “birther” nonsense that he had embraced. On election night, he reacted to the Obama triumph with characteristic grace. “This election is a total sham and a travesty,” he raved on Twitter. “We are not a democracy!”

Somehow, the president and America both survived.

Now, far from home, Mr. Trump is a loser once more, if only because a man he had cruelly and publicly bullied has emerged as a surprise winner.

A few days ago, a fellow named Michael Forbes was designated Scotsman of the year - “Top Scot,” to be precise - in a popular contest sponsored by the Glenfiddich whiskey company and The Scotsm an, a leading newspaper in Scotland.

The award was determined by public ballot. For older New Yorkers, the method may be reminiscent of long-ago competitions like the ones for Miss Subways and Miss Rheingold. Scientific? Hardly. But not without merit, either. Back in its heyday, as in 1956, the Miss Rheingold contest was said to be second only to the presidential election for numbers of votes cast. Vox populi and all that.

The “Top Scot” honor has tended to go to recognized figures like J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame and Susan Boyle, she of the golden vocal cords. This year, one might have expected the award to be given to someone like Andy Murray, the tennis champion.

Instead, the people's choice was Mr. Forbes, 60, a man of means by no means. He works a small farm north of Aberdeen along Scotland's North Sea coast. In British parlance, he is a crofter.

What brought him to the attention of fellow Scots was his role in a documentary ca lled “You've Been Trumped,” an examination of Mr. Trump's heavy-handed maneuvering to build golf courses on 1,400 acres of environmentally delicate land that includes Mr. Forbes's farm.

On the Web site for the golf project, the New Yorker says with characteristic obtuseness, “I have never seen such an unspoiled and dramatic seaside landscape, and the location makes it perfect for our development.” Many others would recognize an unspoiled and dramatic landscape as deserving to remain just that, unspoiled and dramatic - not ripe for something as unnecessary as yet another golf course.

Among those others were a local council that viewed the project as environmentally ruinous and some farmers and fishermen who refused to sell their properties. One of them was Mr. Forbes.

“His determination to stand his ground,” as the “Top Scot” citation put it, led Mr. Trump to demean him with pitiless harshness, captured in the documentary (which had a N ew York run at the Angelika Film Center during the summer).

“His property is slumlike,” the developer said of the crofter. “It's disgusting. He's got stuff thrown all over the place. He lives like a pig.”

Mr. Forbes's response couldn't have been simpler: “It's my home.”

Scottish public opinion apparently turned strongly in the farmer's favor - and by extension against Mr. Trump and the Scottish government that bent to his will - after the British Broadcasting Corporation showed “You've Been Trumped” in October. The New Yorker's lawyers had tried unsuccessfully to block the broadcast.

“Voters were undoubtedly galvanized by the showing of the film,” Richard Phinney, the documentary's producer, said by phone from his home in eastern Ontario, Canada. He added: “Trump says he has great public support for what he's doing in Scotland. It's not possible to sustain that myth anymore.”

New Yorkers are certainly familiar with b attles between little guys and developers bursting with money and support from political powers. Mr. Forbes is definitely a little guy. To receive his honor, he had to travel to Edinburgh, roughly 100 miles from home. “He had not been in Edinburgh in 38 years,” Mr. Phinney said. “That shows you how rooted people there can be.”

Mr. Forbes's description of his first meetings with Mr. Trump will also be familiar to New Yorkers. It's the man they recognize.

“He was being all nicey, nicey and talking about how successful he was and how much money he had,” the crofter told The Scotsman. “That was it for me. I took an instant dislike to him. He called me a village idiot and accused me of living in a pigsty, but I think everyone knows by now that he's the clown of New York.”

E-mail Clyde Haberman: haberman@nytimes.com