“America has continued to rise through every age against every challenge, a people of great works and greater possibilities, who have always found the wisdom and strength to come together as one nation, to widen the circle of opportunity, to deepen the meaning of freedom, to form that more perfect union.”

–President Bill Clinton

First, an admission. I was wrong in thinking abortion wouldn’t play much of a role in the recent election. That issue, and student loan forgiveness, apparently brought out a lot of youth vote in certain states.

What troubles me is both issues allow individuals to abdicate their responsibility for the consequences of, in this case, careless sexual behavior and fiscal mismanagement. Is that the message we want resonating with our young adult population?

For the Democrats, they held the Senate, irrespective of what happens in Georgia. For the Republicans, they wrestled control of the House of Representatives, albeit by the skin of their collective dentures. For at least the next two years, governing will be divided, meaning both sides must be somewhat accountable to the other.

One positive takeaway: Election denial is a losing proposition. Proof of this was the dismal performance by Trump sycophants on the right (consider one Senate candidate’s loss that’s still, to put it politely, a bald head-scratcher) and Georgia’s Ms. Abrams on the left.

But before getting to the brightest silver lining, a word about vote tallying. It varies, of course, from state to state. That’s the price we pay for federalism. But why should it take so long to count votes? At the time of this writing, we’re well over a week post-Election Day and some House districts are still being counted.

How can it take a district in one state over a week to count its thousands of votes when the state of Florida counted well over six million before most of us went to bed election night? Do these districts need more fingers and toes, faster mounts in their Pony Express, or maybe just a bigger abacus?

We can only hope these states, embarrassed by their poor performance, will change their election laws before the 2024 contest.

While there was no factual evidence that the 2020 and 2022 elections were corrupted, the longer it takes votes to drift in, the more suspicion is raised. Why even risk giving people a reason to be suspect of the outcome? We’re still dealing with the regrettable behavior of January 6, 2021. We should be able to trust the outcome of elections in which we participate and the consequences of which affect our lives.

Remember when voters had two options? Vote absentee, or vote on Election Day. Then, Covid happened, and look where we are now. Why is any attempt to revert to a more controllable process now denigrated as being racist or anti-democratic? It’s proving harder to do than it was to get kids back in school.

And with regard to democracy, it was never on the verge of existential threat. The “threat to democracy” battle cry has been run up and down the political flagpole more often than Old Glory at a summer Scout camp. Its use cheapens the value of our Constitution, a document written by the collective genius of our Founders, and one that remains as strong today as it was over two hundred years ago.

But the true silver lining of this month’s election is this: The American people spoke. After hearing the scare tactics from the left and the recitations of Democrat failed policy from the right, they rejected both. With few exceptions, those who rested their campaigns on either tactic were rejected, and those who offered a positive vision for governance were elected. In the final analysis, the voters’ voices are always the last to be heard. I think that was what President Clinton alluded to.

In statewide elections, we Americans vote for incremental change, not drastic upheavals of how we lead our lives in the states where we choose to live. In national elections–that is, the U.S. presidency–not so much. We’ll only take so much of one side’s leadership. Witness the sea change in 2016 and again in 2020.

The Founders established a government with checks and balances that assure we’ll never stray too far from the center, notwithstanding the loud voices from the extremes of the left and right. For that, we should be eternally grateful.

Finally, maybe our politicians should laugh more and smile often. Let’s face it, as is true for all of us, the harsh reality is any one of them could drop from the face of the Earth and our country would barely hiccup, at most. Let’s hope they’ll take their jobs seriously, but themselves much less so.

After all, rumor has it one of the reasons angels can fly is because they take themselves so lightly!