By the time you read this, the votes will have been cast. Some candidates will be celebrating. Others will be contemplating defeat. In close races, we may still be waiting for results. We may also be sorting through claims of fraud.
Perhaps you are simply grateful that the “you-must-think-we-are-stupid” political ads are over for now.
The morning after an election ought to offer some optimism. We have exercised our rights. We have made our choices. Now we should be able to look ahead.
But if you were expecting us to bury our divisions, retire the insults and join in a collective chorus of “Kumbaya,” you may want to lower your expectations.
The president has more than two years remaining in his term. Whatever the results, we should prepare for more accusations, threats of revenge and efforts to turn accountability into evidence of persecution.
An election can change who holds power. It cannot, by itself, repair what we have come to accept from those who wield it.
Repairing what we have come to accept could take years, perhaps a decade or longer.
And rebuilding our expectations of leadership, our respect for truth and our willingness to recognize one another’s humanity will demand more than defeating candidates we dislike.
There is a great deal to repair.
We have watched cruelty masquerade as strength, humiliation become a political weapon and compassion get dismissed as weakness. Personal tragedies have become campaign ammunition. Insults have replaced arguments. Social media rewards outrage while thoughtful disagreement struggles to be heard.
Somewhere along the way, we seem to have confused winning with being right, power with wisdom and loyalty with integrity.
Perhaps most troubling, we have allowed empathy to become a partisan issue.
There is nothing inherently Republican or Democratic about treating another human being with dignity. Neither party owns honesty, fairness, humility or respect for the truth. Neither deserves an exemption from practicing them.
These are the foundations of a decent society. Yet we increasingly speak of them as though expecting them from our leaders was hopelessly naive.
I was raised in the Catholic tradition, where I learned that loving your neighbor wasn’t supposed to depend on whether that neighbor looked like you, worshipped like you or voted like you.
The lesson was simple: Treat others as you would want to be treated.
Practicing it has always been harder than reciting it.
That principle reaches across religions, philosophies and cultures. It asks us to recognize that another person’s dignity does not depend on our approval.
Yet political leaders frequently invoke religious values while behaving as though those values impose no obligations on them.
We hear declarations about protecting families alongside indifference toward the suffering of other families. We hear professions of faith accompanied by ridicule of vulnerable people. We hear promises of national greatness with remarkably little discussion of moral responsibility.
Surely a country’s greatness must include how it treats people who have the least power.
Do we care for the sick? Protect children? Respect women? Defend the rights of people with whom we disagree? Recognize the humanity of people beyond our borders?
And when we fail, can we acknowledge it?
Humility begins with accepting that we can be wrong. Moral leadership requires the courage to admit it, especially when an excuse would be more politically convenient.
We should not expect humility and the courage to admit mistakes to return simply because the campaign signs come down.
Nor should we confuse repair with a demand that everyone meet in the middle. Some claims are false. Some conduct is cruel. Some abuses of power require firm opposition.
We can recognize another person’s humanity while holding that person accountable. Compassion does not require surrendering judgment.
It requires exercising judgment without abandoning our own principles.
That obligation extends to journalism.
For those of us in the news business, the work ahead cannot consist merely of recording the next insult or relaying the next unsupported accusation.
We must establish what happened, explain what the evidence supports and show how decisions affect people’s lives. When an official alleges fraud, we must scrutinize the allegation: Repetition does not turn it into proof. When a leader threatens retaliation, we must explain whom the leader threatens, what power that leader possesses and what safeguards exist.
Fairness does not require giving truth and falsehood equal standing.
And accountability does not end when an official we favor takes office.
Journalism can help a country regain its bearings by giving us a reliable account of the world we share. That includes acknowledging uncertainty, correcting mistakes and listening to people whose experiences challenge our assumptions.
We cannot credibly demand humility from public officials if we refuse to practice it ourselves.
Still, journalism cannot do this work alone. Neither can an election, a political party or a particularly inspiring speech.
The repair will depend on what we reward, what we excuse and what we teach.
When someone on our side humiliates a vulnerable person, do we object or enjoy the performance? When an accusation confirms what we already believe, do we check it before passing it along? When a leader lies, does our response depend on whose interests the lie serves?
Our answers matter because the next generation is watching. We are teaching children what leadership looks like, what winning permits and whose suffering counts.
A decade from now, many of today’s children will be voting. What will we have taught them to expect?
I would like them to expect leaders who can acknowledge a mistake without searching for someone else to blame, public servants who understand that holding office creates obligations rather than a right to treat it as personal property, and people who can argue fiercely without treating an opponent’s suffering as an opportunity.
Getting there will take persistence. There will be setbacks, ugly campaigns and days when decency appears to have little political value.
We will have to insist on it anyway.
That is where I find some hope this morning: In the possibility that enough of us recognize the damage and are willing to undertake the slow work of repairing it.
We do not have to wait for the president to leave office to tell the truth, defend someone being mistreated or refuse to reward cruelty. We can support journalism that verifies before it amplifies. We can demand more from the people we elect, including those whose policies we support.
These choices will not transform the country overnight. But if we repeat them over years, we can help establish what we expect and what we will no longer excuse.
The ballots have been cast.
The long work of becoming a more decent country remains.
This morning is as good a time as any to begin.