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Comment by barsonme | Hacker News Reader

I'll echo a comment I made on Facebook:

    I think Mark Zuckerberg's comments show both ways we can react to this election. You've got to decide:
    will you be constructive or destructive?

    "We can't create a culture that says it cares about diversity and then excludes almost half the country
    because they back a political candidate ... There are many reasons a person might support Trump that do not
    involve racism, sexism, xenophobia ..."

I didn't vote for either candidate. So I'm not advocating either way. But I think America really, really needs to decide how it wants to take this and how it wants to move forward. We, by our actions and state of mind, choose whether this is a good or bad thing. Take control. Be constructive. Do good.

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I feel the same way. But

> But I think America really, really needs to decide how it wants to take this

as a non-US-resident I'd say the US did already decide its action. Thats what the vote is for. In my opinion the people who need to take an honest look at themselves aren't the american voters, but the intelligentia, the "juste millieu". Not just in the US, but the whole West.

I've tried to follow the news coverage here in Germany for almost the entire election this time, including primaries. The utter biasedness of journalism made it unbearable. I could switch between American, French, British or German TV channels - none of the channels did even bother to keep a disguise of "neutrality". Trump was pure evil, his voters deplorable and so on.

I've kept telling people: "Don't underestimate his chances" and now I've never felt so sorry for being right.

America decided it wants to move forward with the candidate it just elected for President. I may not agree with the candidate, but that's the decision that was made. That's how America decided to move forward.

Perhaps you meant that the left needs to decide how it will move forward given this result.

The right too. I have many friends who've taken to gloating over this. That won't help this divide, only widen it.

If the right can't see past itself to be graceful in victory and try to understand the left's anxiety and worries it'll only make things worse.

It's always easier to destroy than it is to create. When your god is Nihilism, especially so.

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