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Comment by davesque | Hacker News Reader

Not the majority, though.

If you're talking about majority of voters, CNN projects Trump to win the popular vote http://www.cnn.com/election/results

No they don't.

Hillary Clinton lost the election but is winning the popular vote

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/09/politics/donald-trump-hillary-...

Yes, they do. Click my link, and click "Popular Vote" tab. They are projecting him as the winner. She is winning currently, but he is the projected winner.

On both sides, how much does this matter at this point? The vote was pretty evenly split. How is this going to affect how you act going forward? There's no mandate on either side, nor was there likely to have been if Clinton had won the election.

It matters insofar as one side is asserting that the results are less valid because the people did not choose Trump. It's the same electoral/popular argument that happens every election that there's a split. The argument does not apply if it did not happen here this time.

No, they don't. Look at your own link. Clinton is up by nearly 400,000 votes.

At the time of my post, it was accurate. Proof http://i.imgur.com/4AWBt2N.png

No candidate received a majority. Clinton (last I checked) is on pace to win a plurality of the popular vote — and that by a pretty slim margin. But that's beside the point. None of this justifies dismissing or insulting or generalizing the opinions of nearly half of the voting population. It's just not constructive. Like it or not, you live in a society with other people. We need to be able to live and work with each other.

> you live in a society with other people. We need to be able to live and work with each other.

I agree. But it appalls me to think why any rational person would support an openly racist and sexist to lead a nation who doesn't pay tax? Even illegal immigrates pay taxes - http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-03-01/study-undocum.... I find it ironic.

How are you going to live and work with them if you don't think they're rational? I don't want to put words in your mouth but I'm afraid that's how some might interpret what you've said. Am I being unfair?

It's a reasonably fair argument I believe. Yes, I can still live with them fine, but that's beside the point, isn't it? It's a fair question and deserve a fair answer. People must've gone through some sort of thinking, pros and cons before cast their vote unless they already made up their mind and turning a blind eye on troulbed personal traits. Are you not agree? Do you offer any explanation or answer that would enlighten us?

First off, thanks for continuing this discussion in a thoughtful way.

The very short answer is that I'm not going to presume how others voted how they did, on either side, at least without asking them. I know that I don't subscribe to all of the views of the candidate I voted for, so I'll grant others the benefit of the doubt they didn't either. There are a lot of different issues, and people hold different positions of those issues, and prioritize the issues differently as well. There are some single-issue voters out there. I'm not. I'm not going to assume you are, either. I may not agree with the positions that someone else holds, or their prioritization of them.

I know I'm not perfect or have all of the answers. I also know that I've changed my positions on issues over the course of my life. I have hope that we can figure out what issues we have in common and work on those together. I also hope that by talking with one another we can come to agreements and be willing to change our minds.

At this point, the election is over. We have choices on how we move forward. My hope is that we can move forward together, and given how split the country is and how unhappy people were even with the candidates they supported, I think this is possible. I hope you do, too!

Thanks again for reading through this and sticking with it.

> The very short answer is that I'm not going to presume how others voted how they did, on either side, at least without asking them. I know that I don't subscribe to all of the views of the candidate I voted for, so I'll grant others the benefit of the doubt they didn't either. There are a lot of different issues, and people hold different positions of those issues, and prioritize the issues differently as well. There are some single-issue voters out there. I'm not. I'm not going to assume you are, either. I may not agree with the positions that someone else holds, or their prioritization of them.

Thanks you. You response is somewhat similar to what a politician would say, equivocal and indirect. Basically, you avoided my question and did not say anything meaningful unfortunately.

> I know I'm not perfect or have all of the answers. I also know that I've changed my positions on issues over the course of my life. I have hope that we can figure out what issues we have in common and work on those together. I also hope that by talking with one another we can come to agreements and be willing to change our minds.

That's why I'm asking the question and hope you would have the answer. But sadly like many others, you are not forthcoming to share but instead wanted us to talk to others for answers. Why is it so hard to share? Why can we get a straight answer to a simple question?

> At this point, the election is over. We have choices on how we move forward. My hope is that we can move forward together, and given how split the country is and how unhappy people were even with the candidates they supported, I think this is possible. I hope you do, too!

Again, not exactly the answers I was hoping for. But thank you for the positive attitude. We all need it.

I'm still willing to listen if you are willing to talk.

But Trump's entire campaign was based on demonizing the other side with lies and disinformation and making unfair generalization about huge groups of people. And don't turn around and try to tell me that Clinton engaged in those kinds of tactics to the same degree. Are we just supposed to turn around and forget all of that, like none of it happened? No! That's like hoping your abusive father or husband will just suddenly start being more nice if you give him what he wants. When has that ever happened?

No. We're not supposed to forget what happened, or just lay down and stop working for what we believe. We need to hold each other and ourselves accountable. We need to figure out a way to constructively move forward together. I don't know about you, but when someone continues to insult me, it makes it very hard for me to want to work with them in an earnest way. I think most people react the same way. We're human. I also admit that I'm not perfect, so it's unfair to expect others to be perfect. I also hope that I can be better, which means that I can change. If I think other people should change, it's fair that I expect change of myself.

The vote was pretty evently split, and voters had an effectively binary choice. Both candidates had record low favorability numbers. I don't believe that people wholly subscribe to every position held by the candidate they chose. (Hell, I don't believe the candidates even wholly subscribe to every position they publicly held. Politics in democracy is about compromise, which unfortunately has apparently become a disparaged trait.)

I also think it's worth recognizing that the people that are expressing the most vitriol are not representative of the population as a whole. The anonymity and distance on the internet can bring out the worst in some people. As can the actions of crowds.

That also means that there are very likely things that we can agree on, things we think are worthwhile. It would be a massive failure on all of our parts if we can't figure out a way to accomplish those goals we have in common. I'm not ready to give up on us yet. You've been participating in the discussion as well, so I hope you're not giving up either.

Correction, not technically the majority. He did not receive the most votes.

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