Harvard Post-Election Forum

Just taking a moment to put down a few thoughts about the recent Harvard Post-Election Forum :

Recently, campaign staffers for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump met at Harvard University for a post election forum. These meetings are what usually goes on after Presidential elections, and are put on by Harvard for the benefit of their students. This year was different, however, as staffers for both sides quickly allowed the meeting to devolve into a shouting match, when such meetings are usually at least civil, if not cordial. Well, what happened is this : Trump's people just had to rub salt in the wounds. They had to. Led by Trump mouthpiece Kelly-Anne Conway, they had to crow and strut and yell the equivalent of  "take that, bitches!". (more after the jump)

Now, some people will think this is just fine. 

Some people love nothing more than gloating and shouting derision at their opponents.
They love coaches like Steve Spurrier,John Harbaugh (or his brother Jim) and people like that.
Well, I do not.
I do not consider being a sore winner to be an admirable trait. When you win at something, be it tiddly-winks or Presidential elections, you should accept victory gracefully and thank your opponent for a good match, even if you privately think it wasn't. Why ? because any civilized society has to maintain some level of decorum. Some level of civility, of urbanity. The alternative is looking like a bunch of howler monkeys. Are we now to start flinging feces and rotten fruit at people we beat at chess ? I'm not saying you can't be happy you won, or you can't demonstrate your happiness. I'm saying that after the shouting is over you should go to your opponent and offer him your hand and say "Good Game, Guy." and smile. and try hard to mean it. Why ? because when you inevitably lose, you will feel the same way as the loser of the current contest is feeling right now, and it will salve your hurt feelings a bit to know that your erstwhile opponent is willing to congratulate you and offer you his hand in friendship, or at least in polity. Perhaps it seems trivial to you, but consider all the fights that have broken out at sporting events in the USA. No one likes to lose. Nobody ever. But, zero-sum games, and elections are a zero-sum game in this country, have to have a loser and a winner. This means that the winner needs to learn how to win with grace. Not like a robot, but with good sportsmanship. Kelly-Anne Conway and the others at the Harvard Forum did not win with grace, they won with "fuck you." This does not act to smooth over the contentious nature of the late Presidential election, it only exacerbates the wound, rubbing salt in it, as has been said. This country is currently divided sharply along partisan lines, with both sides preferring to sling insult and invective rather than logically counter the other side's arguments. Make no mistake, we're currently about 3 steps away from open warfare. (no, I mean real, actual shooting at each other.) This is not the road we want to go down. So I'm calling for everyone on both sides -- lose graciously, win gracefully, stop flinging poo at each other.  Trump managed to win the Electoral College Votes. The electoral college is not the thing I want to see us using, but he gamed the system and won. Barring a stunning reversal through recounts in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan (not coincidentally three states who enacted sweeping voter suppression measures since 2012) , or some kind of wild upset in the Electoral College, Donald Trump will be sworn in as President of the United States January 20th. There's no stopping that reality. But right now, Trump, Pence, Conway et al need to stop being sore winners.
I can't stand a sore loser, but I can't stand a sore winner even more.