Tomorrow voted in a way in the 2024 presidential election and the nation voted for another.

An altogether bruising year in politics culminated in a deafening few weeks before last Tuesday’s election. All eyes were, relentlessly, on the White House. There was some consensus that the election was the most important in US history; that democracy was on the ballot; that the vote for the presidency was ultimately a vote for or against fascism.

Others expressed concern that there was a real risk that if Donald J. Trump were elected to a second term, we would never vote again.

Sooner or later, we’ll see how much of that starts to happen. Meanwhile, those who chose not to support Trump must take their energies, anxieties and enthusiasm elsewhere. While coping is all well and good, channeling it into positive change is a must.

This editorial board has written several times in recent weeks about the importance of retention calm and politeness.

Several of our readers responded to these words with some degree of disgust. We understand. In a stifling climate of “fight, fight, fight” (or, indeed, “when we fight, we win”) there seemed to be no room for anything other than total condemnation of the candidate(s) or the contest. on our airwaves and on our phone screens.

That attitude must now give way to something more level, something more universal.

If the November 5 result didn’t go your way, if it left you feeling deprived and scared for yourself or others, you are not alone. If you wish people would be nicer to each other in general, if you’re completely sick and tired of the hedging and arguing, you’re not alone.

We will repeat today what we said on October 27: “A return to that special local lens, a return to everyday clarity, despite the increasingly noxious fog of the ‘national narrative’, is something that may require a special, concerted effort. It is an effort that will pay off handsomely. And if any state can do it, Maine can.”

Tomorrow he can do it. The people of Maine can do it.

We can take care of a neighbor as we do. We can provide companionship to people who are alone, we can log volunteer hours where they are desperately needed, we can ask someone on the side of the road if they need help. We can work together, in small ways that make a huge difference every day, to make sure the state’s most vulnerable are prepared for the start of the state’s cruelest season. Year after year, we see that we’re capable of all of this in Maine… and we should be proud of the fact that we’re still damn good at it.

The neighborhoods and streets we live in are the places where our care and concern can leave a positive impression almost immediately. By comparison, squashing the most heated national debates and stresses—the southern border, the future of the Supreme Court, the issue of trade policy—seems almost abstract.

Resistance to one or another political outcome is a process. Working effectively towards a result, once achieved, is another. You’d be forgiven for assuming that a common ground might not be accessible at this point. Fortunately, that’s not true at all.

Glimpses of it were already visible in the state last week.

“It’s been heartbreaking for me to see relationships and communities torn apart by differences that are often just differences in how we get to something that is a common goal,” Carlene Hill Byron he told the Press Herald after the returns.

Byron and her friend Barbara Lanfer made a plan to meet to plant daffodils in Libbytown on the morning of November 6; one voted for Kamala Harris, the other for Trump.

Byron told our reporter that both women cared about their communities and wanted everyone to have opportunities to succeed and feel safe. “We can both work together toward these goals,” Lanfer said. “I would like to see the country be able to do this better.”

Amen, Barbara. We would like that too.

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