Back in the third week in October, I posted a poll that asked

[MineralMan]

"Will DU Become A Friendlier Place after The Election?" It's now archived, but visible to DUers.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9368264

The results of that poll surprised me at the time. 63% voted for the option that said, "No, things are likely to get even more heated." I was puzzled by that result, frankly. I had hoped that DUers would vote for, "Yes, things will probably be calmer after the election," but only 5% of those voting chose that option.

Well, the election is over. The poll was prophetic. It's too bad, really. I'm still hopeful that time will reduce the amount of negativity I'm still seeing. We'll see. I hope we all think about it a little over the next few weeks and see if we can't find ways to work together toward the goal of steadily moving this country forward in a progressive direction, even if that movement is slower than any of us would like. I fear what might happen if we don't, and I don't just mean here on DU.

I'm heading into a very busy period, work-wise, so I'll be posting less during that period. I will still be here, though, and will continuing reading DU and posting occasionally. I hope that the prediction made by the results of that October poll won't continue to be the situation. I truly hope that.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear Mineral Man...

I hope we can come together too.

There is so much polarization; we see it everywhere...

[Andy823]

2. Yes it's sad!

I think we have to many trolls posting who want to start trying to divide people before the next election, that and the same old crowd who never wanted Obama to be elected and have never gotten over the fact their candidate lost! It's amazing how easy it is for those posters to get people all worked up by posting nothing but negative things about the president and the democrats in congress. We need to come together to make sure the next election doesn't turn out like this one did, not continue to fight and argue. It's really sad when good posts get so many unrecs, and the hateful posts end up on the front page!

K&R

[Ozymanithrax]

3. Posted my own riff on that yesterday...no we are not becoming friendlier...

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Ozymanithrax/149

But, with 24 hours to think about it, I think we are going through that same period of grief Republicans went through after 2008, when people were predicting their demise, when they tore themselves apart for not being conservative enough.

So, they came back screaming fucking crazy and, with the help of the recession they created, came back to power.

Here, we seem to busy with post mortems. Maybe by January, we can start working towards saving the Senate in 2012 and winning back the House.

I think that 2012 will be another wave. I just can't see yet who will benefit from the wave.

[hfojvt]

4. should we have a sing-along?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIE2GAqnFGw

Man, I hate the Stones. If only Mitch Miller was still alive.

Coach always said that people would not stay angry if they sang this song together

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_YK7ebcZ2o&feature=related

There were only 91 responses to your poll though, so I am not sure that represents the feeling of thousands here, but after a crushing defeat it is quite predictable that there will be angry people and a blame game. Had we won there might have been a month of celebrating until January when many would be upset that our majority STILL had not lassoed the moon and used its cheese to provide free pizza for everybody.

Man, I am so gonna get killed for that last line.

Deservedly so.

[jaxx]

5. That is also my hope.

We have a lot of hard work to do and it will take us all to get it done.

[leftstreet]

6. Why don't you say what you really mean?

"I'm still hopeful that time will reduce the amount of negativity"

What does that mean?
What are DUers 'negative' about?

"moving this country forward in a progressive direction, even if that movement is slower than any of us would like"

What does that mean?

:shrug:

What exactly are we being lectured about...this week?

[pintobean]

7. This might help

http://www.marin.edu/~don/study/7read.html

[MineralMan]

8. I'm pretty sure I wrote that very clearly. It said exactly

what I meant to say. I'm sorry if it did not meet with your approval.

It was not a lecture in any way. It was some information and my thoughts about that information.