The election is over.
Our nation has been torn apart by very different ideas. Not only do Americans disagree on what our government should do, we don't even agree on basic facts. That is because we now get our information from two entirely different streams of non-overlapping sources.
We are really two nations sharing one government and one land.
If that is not difficult enough, we have a lot of forces seeking to keep this division as polarized as possible, making great profits from whipping up hatred, and dehumanizing 'the other side.'
There is no pretending that we only disagree during election season and then go back to 'normal life' afterwards any more. It's like we are in constant election season and it never ends.
The best thing we can do is recognize that our fellow Americans do not share our beliefs but they do share our country.
We know that we have to live together.
The best thing we can do is to remember that we must share this country, and resign ourselves to accepting that it takes all of us to make America what it is.
Bitter hatred and disrespect is not helpful at all, accomplishes nothing, makes us dysfunctional.
We have big enough differences without adding hatred on top of everything else. We have to try to rise above that.
Our challenge is rediscover respect for one another.
If America is really great then part of that has to mean we respect all Americans. A hateful and bitterly divided nation cannot be great.
David Brooks:
"Well, if ever there was a campaign that was going to be a blowout, I thought this was it. I thought we had an unpopular president that people were ready to get rid of. I expected a large margin. And I was wrong. It's a 2.8 percentage margin nationally.
And so I think what we have learned is that we a very evenly divided nation, two groups of people in non-overlapping universes. For a time, it seemed — and I think people in both camps thought, well, the people on my team could eventually crush the people on the other team, and my team will get to rule.
I think we now have to face reality. That's just never going to happen. The other side is never going to go away. And we have got to find a way to live with each other.
And so, to me, that's the biggest takeaway of where we are right now."
That's the tone of this excellent discussion of where we stand as a nation:
Shields and Brooks on PBS Newshour
Personal Ignore Policy PIP: I like civil discourse. I will give you all the respect in the world if you respect me. Mouth off to me, or express overt racism, you will be PERMANENTLY Ignore Listed. Zero tolerance. No exceptions. I'll never read a word you write, even if quoted by another, nor respond to you, nor participate in your threads. ... Ignore the shallow. Cherish the thoughtful. Long Live Civil Discourse, Mutual Respect, and Good Debate! ps: Feel free to adopt my PIP. It works well.
BartenderElite (11-07-2020), blackascoal (11-16-2020), martin (11-07-2020), Trumpet (11-09-2020)
I am a Democrat and I am reaching out to my fellow Republican Americans, appealing to you to share mutual respect.
Let us keep the lines if civility open so that we can discuss what's going on in our nation and see what we can agree on to move forward.
I am also reaching out to my fellow Americans on the left to accept that we live in a very divided America, that hatred and animosity should not be shown to our fellow Americans.
We are all in this together.
We must find our way forward together.
We have to stop fighting so we can have meaningful discussion of the important issues we have to try to resolve somehow.
Our challenge is to find a way to agree on the basic facts.
If we don't even agree on the facts, we can never decide what needs to be done about them.
Personal Ignore Policy PIP: I like civil discourse. I will give you all the respect in the world if you respect me. Mouth off to me, or express overt racism, you will be PERMANENTLY Ignore Listed. Zero tolerance. No exceptions. I'll never read a word you write, even if quoted by another, nor respond to you, nor participate in your threads. ... Ignore the shallow. Cherish the thoughtful. Long Live Civil Discourse, Mutual Respect, and Good Debate! ps: Feel free to adopt my PIP. It works well.
Earl (11-07-2020)
Geeko Sportivo (11-10-2020)
Oh, so now you want to reunite.
After the daily...hourly attacks on the president and his family, you want to reunite.
Perhaps you can “reunite” after cheering the economic loss of millions of Americans and their families caused by the virus from China that China failed to contain.
There will be no reuniting and Biden is not the president-elect.
The Supreme Court has not spoken.
AProudLefty (11-07-2020), signalmankenneth (11-07-2020)
PostmodernProphet (11-07-2020), War=Peace (11-07-2020), Wolverine (11-10-2020)
Earl (11-07-2020)
evince (11-07-2020), Frank Apisa (11-07-2020), Guno צְבִי (11-15-2020), moon (11-07-2020)
Not one Electoral Vote has been given to anyone.
The media does not determine the Elctoral Votes.
The Supreme Court will decide this election.
This election has been a vivid demonstration of American democracy in action, Earl. The long, patient lines of voting during the pandemic and the days of the mailed vote tabulation have been impressive and reassuring. The Supreme Court is not going to reverse the inevitable outcome. Not a chance. Be a man and shake on it.
Last edited by martin; 11-07-2020 at 07:20 AM.
Earl (11-07-2020)
Frank Apisa (11-07-2020), Micawber (11-07-2020), PoliTalker (11-07-2020)
If you voted Democrat in the election, you voted for a Platform (The DNC 2020 Official Platform) that was the most extreme left , racial socialist policy agenda in American history. FACT.
ANYONE who votes for a radical socialist agenda in the US would have to be a fucking moron,
Why ?
Because full-blooded socialism has never once, in history, been successful. And It hasn't just failed, it has always failed DISASTEROUSLY, causing tremendous suffering, misery and destruction.
I cannot respect an American adult who is so fucking stupid or ignorant of history that they do not understand this. It boggles my mind.
IMO, there is no help for people like you - you MUST be afflicted with some kind of permanent psychological/psychiatric disorder. You cannot be salvaged. The big problem is that you are evidently legally allowed to vote. And this present a real danger to right-minded Americans who do not want to live in a Third World Hell. So ideally, you should be put down, because there are no probably no other practical means available at present to strip you of your eligibility to vote.
Dachshund
Last edited by Dachsund; 11-07-2020 at 07:25 AM.
I agree, but fat chance. These people have the back, above all else including country, of an asshole, single term, impeached, serial bankrupt, fraud university orchestrating, hypocritical,
incompetent, corrupt, racist, liar, confidence man, criminal and cheat. They have been inculcated in Fix News lies.
These yokels need deprogramming first in order to begin to love America.
Iolo/Penderyn (11-07-2020), TTQ64 (11-07-2020)
Guno צְבִי (11-15-2020)
Earl (11-07-2020)
I think that if America can be reunited, Biden is the man to do it, but if the fantasising of the extreme-right persons on here is anything to go by, Trump's grotesque behaviour is fueled by very wide-spread nuttiness that will make compromise difficult. I wonder can anything be done while the present methods of selecting candidates plus the ability to fix voting districts on party lines continue. They seem to cut out 'moderate' opinion.
Earl (11-07-2020)
Micawber (11-07-2020)
According to a lot of the Left America does not belong to Americans, we dont have the right to decide who comes here there must be open borders, and anyone who objects is racist.
This illegal illegitimate regime that runs America is at fault...not me.... they do not represent me and I have long objected to their crimes against humanity.
Unification would be good- but let's NOT invent a ' common enemy ' to unite over, eh ? The poor and the innocent of the world have had enough American bombs dropped on them already. Try uniting with them too. Fuck the arms industry jobs. Fuck Netanyahu.
" First they came for the journalists...
We don't know what happened after that . "
Maria Ressa.
Iolo/Penderyn (11-07-2020), War=Peace (11-07-2020)
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