Kudos to Hillary...

I was wondering if she would rise above the bitterness that seems to be prevalent with a lot of Democrats and to her credit she will.

www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/hillary-...5M?OCID=ansmsnnews11

From the above

"Protocol dictates that former presidents, and their spouses, are given prominent seats to witness an inauguration. But never has a former first lady lost the election, and it had not been a given that either Clinton would attend.

Hillary Clinton's attendance, in particular, will be an important symbol about the peaceful transfer of power in America despite one of the most bitter campaigns in recent memory."

I would ave certainly understood her not being there as it was such a bitter and horrid campaign by both sides, but I give her a ton of credit for respecting protocol and hopefully this will be a sign for everybody to move on and try to work together going forward.

As big an idiot as I find Trump, he is our President and the office of the President deserves respect no matter who is in office. Support them when the are right and oppose them when they are wrong.

To those who continue to say he isn't our President, I would remind you of how you felt about those that said the same thing of Obama. In the end he is. Whether you like the guy or not. I certainly don't like him or vote for him, but he is my President warts and all.

"Moving on" is what they hope we will do.

Ain't happening in our house.

If he should shock us and actually do something worthwhile, good for all of us and him. Should he perform as we expect... resistance is *not* futile.

And I disagree... he will be "the" President, but he is not mine... and I never have gone so far before, not even with W.

"And I disagree... he will be "the" President, but he is not mine... and I never have gone so far before, not even with W."

My mantra for each and every one of OUR Presidents has been, "Support them when they are right, oppose them when they are wrong." Whether you like them or not... Whether you respect them or not... they are the duly elected President. I certainly didn't want Obama as my President and as much as I disagreed with nearly everything he did, he was still OUR President, same went for the second Bush and every other one. I just don't get this attitude. Murphy explained that it was mostly a personal dislike for the guy that would not allow her to accept him. I understand where she is coming from, but could not disagree more with you, or her, on this. The beauty, and sometimes horror, of our system is the peaceful transition from one party to the other with the entire nation moving forward from there. I am not saying that we accept what he does (see the mantra), but I am saying that we accept the process.

The old a divided house will fall saying comes to mind. I think this willingness to separate and distance oneself is part of an ongoing change in America. The idea that we can keep separate values while somehow still being united as one seems to be the norm, but that concept is an unrecognizable to me. Cultures, races, and religions have all been more separated now than I can recall. I once heard someone say that we are great because we are diverse. I do not agree with that. America is great, I feel, because we OVERCOME our diversity.

So I guess now we can add to the list of separation. Cultures, races, religions, and now political leanings.

but I think it should be changed, as the Electoral College has failed the stated intentions of the Founders in creating it. They specifically addressed it's purpose as preventing a man like Trump from getting elected, and yet here we are with him. He is *not* The People's President, he is the Electoral College's president, and it is time to change that.

Other than that, I will be glad to acknowledge him doing well when/if he does something right, and will fight him -- and our reactionary Congress -- the rest of the way when he.they move to tear down the institutions that have allowed this country to fulfill the purpose of government, namely to operate in the interest of the People and to ensure that those less wealthy and less powerful are not taken advantage of by those with wealth and power.

The man is a villain, and I shall refuse to ever give support to him until he shows colors other than those he has had on full display.

I agree with your middle paragraph completely. Though we may differ on what institutions allow this country to be great. Nothing specific in mind here, just that we all will probably have views on what is bloated and what isn't, what is necessary and what isn't, etc.

I lean towards you third paragraph, though not as strongly as you seem. I find him to be vile and disgusting, but don't know about the villain characteristic.

I completely disagree with your view that the Electoral College failed. One of its original purposes was to do as you say, but that wasn't the only one. Among the others, was to prevent the "tyranny of the masses". In other words to avoid a limited number of population centers ruling the rest of the country. This was a classic example of that factor playing in. Trump had won the popular vote, by a vary narrow margin until it hit the West coast. New York, cities and the West Coast basically swayed the popular vote to Clinton. Other than the West Coast, it was a slight Trump victory. The Electoral College did exactly what it was supposed to do.

Getting rid of the Electoral College is the wrong thing to do and completely against the founding fathers wishes, in my opinion. It worked exactly as it was supposed to, it just didn't favor your candidate.

To be completely open - as I have stated numerous times in numerous ways, I found both of these candidates to be loathsome individuals. But I guarantee you that I would be standing in the same place if Clinton had one. She would have been OUR President and the Electoral College should stand as is and my mantra would still be in place.

Just disagree with it.

Essentially you place your personal view of the person above all else. That is certainly your right. I make no judgement to the value of that opinion. I just disagree with it.

If you wish to judge others negatively for holding a differing view, again that is your choice/right. One could certainly argue that it takes greater character to accept the process over the individual. I understand that nothing would ever change your view of the issue and accept that. I don't judge your character based upon that view, apparently you do.

For the record I do stand against those types of jokes often. I am not PC in any way, but I also don't condone those types of activities.

Since we are doing FTR -- FTR, and as a reminder, as I have not commented much in this forum In the past year -- Clinton was not my candidate, but I would never vote for Trump, or waste my vote on a 3rd party candidate with 0 chance of winning.

I represent what *used* to be called the "honorable opposition." The man who took the oath today does not, as he is not only not honorable, he is dangerous and vile.

To your reply -- The "tyranny of the masses" argument you cite is indeed another part of the founders intent. But from my readings, losing by almost 3 million votes and still winning the EC is not what Hamilton & Co had in mind, so I will still strongly disagree with you -- the EC *did* fail, and for the reasons I noted.

I also take umbrage to your "other than the west coast" comment, which has the hint of saying that the votes of the people of the west coast don't count as much.

And with that, since we are drawing on the same source but clearly have differing understandings of it, I believe we will not reach a common ground on this topic. IMO this makes further discussion pointless.

on this point

"I also take umbrage to your "other than the west coast" comment, which has the hint of saying that the votes of the people of the west coast don't count as much."

I did not mean that they don't weigh that much. My point was that having one sector overcome the entirety of the rest was what I was pointing at. Not that they don't matter. Just the domination by one sector was what was trying to be prevented.

Would also disagree about the "waste of a vote" but for a variety of reasons, I am certain we could never reach any point of agreement.

And yes we definitely disagree about the EC and whether or not it failed.

But do we always have to reach a point of agreement or common ground? Isn't one of the points of discussion and for boards like this to exist so that one can see that while we may disagree, there is validity to the opposition? That reasonable people can have differing opinions and still be reasonable about them and respect the other side of the coin? Just a thought.