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It’s “tomorrow,” and as a certain Little Orphan has been promising (accurately) since first singing it on Broadway in 1977, the sun came out.
Well, this editorial was written before the polls closed Tuesday, so we admit to being a bit optimistic in saying that, but history shows the sun keeps rising regardless of dire campaign predictions. And it remains more important this year than in any presidential election in recent memory to keep this in mind.
The world doesn’t end because your candidate won or lost. You wake up the next day, and everything that needed to be done still awaits: work, paying bills, home repairs, appointments made months ago, getting kids off to school, even planning that wedding, birthday party or funeral. It turns out the nation — much less the universe — did not hinge on the 2024 U.S. Presidential election results.
Yes, odds are high that the results will be disputed, which is fine as long as everyone follows and respects the non-violent processes in place to pursue concerns. And yes, maybe somewhere down the road, the choices we collectively made yesterday will have a huge impact. But after this brutally heated election season, we heartily encourage you to put down the phones and tablets, shut off the news, step outside and remind yourself of a few things.
Elections do not, of themselves, alter much in the short term. Any real shift still hinges on what we all do, and in what we all believe, moving forward. If you see the victor as an element of change, remember that changing a democracy takes a great deal of effort and agreement, and be patient. If you believe the winner will damage the nation, figure out legal (and non-violent) ways to prevent it.
Take a breath, maybe a lot of them. Try to drain off some of the relentless toxicity of this election’s hyperbole. In particular, remember that all those ads and speeches insisting it was “us” vs. “them” were wrong. It was, and remains, “Americans” vs. “Americans.” The “them” of the campaign very often were neighbors, relatives, co-workers and other people you know — people who, if politics never came up, were easy to get along with. This is a country based on the core belief that we can disagree politically yet still share a meal at the same diner, worship at the same church, send children to the same school, use the same barber or hair stylist, shop at the same grocery store.
It’s true: American Democracy cannot be destroyed by outside forces. It can die from within, if enough of us decide the only way to save it is to forsake it. Contrary to the all-or-nothing rhetoric of some politicians and pundits, holding an opposing political view does not make you an “enemy from within.” It makes you a practitioner of the form of government forged nearly 250 years ago. It lasted that long because no matter how divisive we became — including a Civil War — the desire to succeed together outweighed the instinct to splinter into intractable tribes.
Please: Try not to gloat, try not to loathe. Try instead to let go of the acrimony others have relentlessly preached in their personal quests for power. Watch the sunset, and watch it rise, and remember that for all of us there are bigger things than political opinions.