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Whether the candidate you supported for president won or lost, we all need to support the person chosen by the majority to lead this nation.

Columns share an author's personal perspective and are often based on facts in the newspaper's reporting.

Election day has passed, and by the time you are reading this, we should know who won the election. Whether the winner is the person you voted for, or his opponent, that person will be the president for the next four years.

I have been saddened at what I have seen posted on social media sites about candidates. I am not talking about candidate postings. I am talking about what my fellow MetroWest residents have been posting about candidates. Where has our sense of decency gone? Did we all forget that old adage that two wrongs do not make a right?

If you want to address an issue with a candidates position, or perhaps a statement on a topic you are interested in, then do that in a civil and factual way. What do you think you are accomplishing when you post memes that are derogatory about a candidate? Do you honestly think some meme is going to change a persons mind about the candidate they support? News flash, it will not.

We are a democracy, and many seem to have forgotten what that means. Let me remind you. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines democracy as government by the people: especially:rule of the majority; and a government in which the supreme power isvestedin the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held freeelections. I ask you to pay particular attention to the statement, rule of the majority.

There are so many issues facing this nation today. How we act on them will impact ours, our children's and our children's children's lives. Climate change, racial and economic equity, and reproductive rights are not new issues. We have been talking about and legislating them for years. We have seen the efforts on those issues sometimes take a course we are not happy with over the last few years. That simply means that those on the opposite side of these issues are now seeing their side lead, just as we saw our side do for a time prior to the last few years. That is what democracy does, gives us the right to choose to change our direction when the majority of the people feel the need for that change.

Let us all start leading by example. You want respect? Then be respectful of all others, even those whose political views we may find reprehensible. You want equality? Then treat every person you engage with as your equal, as someone who has just as much right to their opinion as you have to yours. You want change? Then work to build a coalition of like-minded people to do just that. You want to complain about an elected official? Then do that using facts and statistics.

For many of us here in MetroWest, the path our country has been on for the last few years is not the path we would choose. We need to remember that for the eight years prior to that, some of our friends and neighbors felt as we do now, that we were on the wrong path.

Fundamentally, we have seen our country shift on the ideals that for so long defined who we are. That shift will have consequences. What those consequences will ultimately be remains to be seen. A wise man once told me that nothing lasts forever, not even the bad stuff. So if you see what is happening as bad, hang on. Just like the weather, it will change soon.

The will of the people must be sacrosanct in all we do in order for democracy to work. Without that, we are not a democracy. Whether the candidate you supported for president won or lost, we all need to support the person chosen by the majority to lead this nation. While doing that we should concentrate on working for the betterment of all, and for the United States of America to be the shining light in the darkness that those who founded this nation designed us to be.

Stephanie Deeley is co-president of the League of Women Voters of Framingham.

Excerpt from:
Opinion/Deeley: In a democracy, the will of the people must be sacrosanct - Milford Daily News