The Voice

[caption id="attachment_16235" align="aligncenter" width="502"] Democratic Election Night 2016 attendees look on with concern as state results are called-in at the Javits Center in New York on November 8th, 2016. Joey Khan/Photography and Digital Editor[/caption] Regardless of what side of the aisle you stand on, we can all agree the 2016 election cycle was filled with a sickening amount of animosity and dread. No one candidate was at fault. No one party was at fault. Fear was everywhere. Hate was directed at everyone. This message is not about whether you voted for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump or a third party candidate. It is not about whether you’re a Democrat or Republican or something else. Heck, it’s not even about politics. It’s about human decency, something our country seems to be in short supply of. Like it or not – and a lot, including members of this paper, don’t – the next Commander-in-Chief of the United States has been determined. Like it or not – confident that he can or not – we need him to be a successful president. We need him to be the unifying president he said he will be in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. [caption id="attachment_16236" align="alignright" width="200"] Democratic Election Night 2016 attendees look on with concern as state results are called-in at the Javits Center in New York on November 8th, 2016. Joey Khan/Photography and Digital Editor[/caption] But unity – or at least tolerance – does not start with the president. It starts with us, the people, doing better by one another. Jason Ianni, a sophomore biology pre-dental major and Trump supporter, reached out to The Setonian on Twitter Wednesday morning. He wrote that he had repeatedly been “flipped off and cursed at” and “had a door thrown in my face” the night before. For whatever reason – perhaps because of our previous endorsement of Clinton – he didn’t originally think The Setonian would write about his experience, as if we would be okay with what happened to him because of the candidate he backed in an election. Whether you agree with Ianni’s – or anyone’s – political views or not, this is not how we are supposed to treat one another. This is not how we foster progress, acceptance, discussion or bipartisanship – already tall tasks. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that,” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said. “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” You can be mad and angry and scared all you want. You can disagree. You can argue. You can protest peaceably. [caption id="attachment_16237" align="aligncenter" width="418"] Democratic Election Night 2016 attendees look on with concern as state results are called-in at the Javits Center in New York on November 8th, 2016. Joey Khan/Photography and Digital Editor[/caption] That’s all fine – it’s what has always made America great – but actions like the one’s Ianni described should not be welcomed. They do no good. All that just spreads fear and hate, and we can’t let that define this country moving forward. The Voice is intended to best represent the collective opinion of The Setonian’s Editorial Board. It is written by The Setonian’s Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor.