I imagine everyone who is paying attention to the election can see that it has damaged our idea of democracy and challenged it, in our eyes and in the eyes of the world. In America, many of the people I know are in shock, many feeling something approaching terror, about what is happening to our country.

For generations, we have been proud of our elections, an example held up to the world. I think no one is proud of this one, it is a plague  we can’t wait to pass. But there is a lot to be learned from trouble, and I am beginning to learn from it.

Panic is never a good or healthy way to evaluate reality or perspective, I am shocked and frightened at times, but I also see – this may just make me strange – a number of good things arising from the election, and I am staying away from the news now and going into myself. The die is very much cast, and all of the commentary and punditry has in  my mind done just as much damage as the campaign itself, our culture has abandoned truth and understanding for hysteria and conflict.

We have perhaps always embraced a romanticized idea about democracy, the good old days were never good for everybody, democracy can be spectacularly ugly and messy, that’s why dictators hate the idea so much – everybody gets their say, even if it is hateful and wrong to many,  and most of us don’t like what everyone else says.

What is good for me about this election?

First, I am awakened to the fact that I have been a sloppy and indifferent citizen, I need to stop taking my freedom and values for granted. Whatever happens, people like me will have to work hard, struggle perhaps, for the things we believe in. I have been a lazy American,and since I love the values I see as being American – they have truly been a beacon unto the world and to many people in my life – I want to work to strengthen and preserve them.

These are values worth fighting for, and many people have died for them.

Secondly, I think the election has sparked a great and deep and inevitable political awakening among women, some men, Latinos, the young,  many African-Americans and almost everyone who is close to the immigrant experience, a centerpiece of the American experiment, we are the oldest Constitutional Democracy in the world and we can certainly do better than this.

Latinos and other immigrant peoples are registering and voting in record numbers, and are saying in poll after poll that they belong here, they are Americans too. A new coalition is being formed, and it transcends either political party and will help heal and re-shape our broken system of government. I believe that women will make their voices heard and demand real change from systems still dominated by arrogant men. It will not be the same.

The election has awakened me to the suffering, disconnection and anguish of those who are left behind, mostly white working class men who feel abandoned and betrayed by our political system, and are being abandoned and betrayed yet again in this election year, worse perhaps than they yet know.

I wasn’t fully aware of these deep wounds and am grateful to understand them better. They will inform and affect my idea of politics. There are two Americas and they look and act very differently from one another. The challenge is to live together, not apart.

I see more clearly than before than we have become Two Nations, not one, neither one living in the same reality, embracing the same idea of truth,  speaking to the other or feeling empathy or sympathy for the other.  We are not speaking to one another, just over each other. I  believe a new leader will emerged from this morass who will make speaking to these disparate countries the most urgent political priority. A prophet, I think, of sorts, I don’t know where he or she is, but I believe he or she is coming.

The greatest leaders always emerge from the greatest stress and challenge.

It has never been clearer to me that our bi-polar idea – all ideas and arguments and issues broken into two camps, a left and right, does not work.

Our civic discussions are about conflict, not truth. We are polarized to the point of being crippled.

Our government is broken and bitterly divided, unable to help people or accomplish anything of significance. I believe we and our media will have to broaden our notions of the complexity of the world to break the jam. The left and the right have failed us, they simply don’t work any longer, if they ever really did. There are a lot of ways to look at the world, a lot more than two. I need to vote for different kinds of politicians, far beyond the ones offered us by the left and the right.

The system manipulates us into thinking we really have a choice, but in the larger sense, we really don’t.  Choice is an illusion in a political system dominated only by two ideologies. That can be a different kind of tyranny.

The two systems often seem to mirror one another, that is why elections are always so close – each side is doing essentially the same thing. People who try to truly change the system are pushed to the edge of society and ignored, kept out of public sight and common discourse.

I understand for me that the choice is not between Republicans or Democrats , the choice is a compassion world or a callous, greedy and angry one. I am reminded that we need to listen to people, treat them with dignity and respect, and offer them a way of living in the world with education,  opportunity and dignity. Demagogues only arise when something is wrong, when promises are kept there is no need for them.

I wonder sometimes where such a system or leader will come from, but I feel in my heart that someone is on the way, answering the wounded call that is this season of rage.

I am awake, and grateful for an election that woke me and so many others up. I think it is true that a country is spiritually and political ill when it asks nothing of its people other than to be angry and afraid. That is a pathway to disconnection and conflict.

I am happy to do more, and waiting for the leader who will ask it of me.