Now that things have cooled off...

We need to talk about what happened last week.

I run the risk of splitting my audience here. When you write columns about salads, shoe shopping and beer, you’re not writing for Democrats or Republicans, Independents or Libertarians. You’re writing for people who want to relax and indulge in something frivolous. I’m not trying to change the world here, just make it a little more colorful and a little less bleak.

But when a country elects a man like Donald Trump to be President of the United States, I take it as a cue to break with tradition. Spoiler alert: I’m not a fan of this man. I am among the chorus of those who find him a racist, repugnant, boorish boob lacking in intellect and moral authority, a totalitarian bully who fuels prejudice and inspires hatred. People are panicking. I am one of them.

It’s unnecessary to delineate my reasons for feeling this way. You know all the arguments, the scandals, the history. No need to go into them now that the election is behind us. It would be redundant, and besides, it’s easy to be the Monday-morning quarterback and analyze why things went the way they did. It’s quite another to ponder what might come next, and if what I saw on November 9 was any indication, what comes next won’t be pretty.

A couple of years ago I made the decision to become a high school teacher -- a modest and attainable goal, and one that I’m still pursuing. The course I’m currently taking at the University of New England requires me to make bi-weekly trips to Biddeford High School to observe instruction in various English classes, and I was slated to visit the school the day after the election. Normally, when you walk into a school during peak hours, there’s a sort of baseline thrum that permeates the building, as though the act of learning in itself is capable of producing a tuning-fork-like frequency. On this day there was a silence you only hear in the vacuum of deep space.

The second class I observed was a sophomore honors class -- a small one. Seven students sat in a tight cluster of desks intimately arranged in a semi-circle; I sat among them as the teacher presided at the front. The students’ assignment over the past several classes had been to conduct an analysis of a stump speech made by several presidential candidates over the course of the nearly yearlong campaign. With the election results still fresh, and a lack of sleep still evident in the pouches under the kids’ eyes, the discussion took on new meaning. You don’t typically address political stances during school. Outside of a social studies or current events class, it’s not exactly appropriate. This day was different. Given the assignment, and the tension in the air, politics was inescapable.

Clearly in need of catharsis, and perhaps emboldened by the intimate class size, the students shared their thoughts on what had happened. Most of their opinions were expressed through the teenage smokescreen of uncertain giggles and lighthearted banter, which is about what you’d expect from kids who had yet to see their 16th birthday. One girl wasn’t feeling quite so breezy.

“My mom came into my room this morning sobbing,” she said. “She held my head in her arms and told me she didn’t want me to live in fear.” With that, tears of her own started forming at the corners of her eyes. She dabbed at them with a tissue as the girls on either side of her put a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s like rape culture is okay now,” she said.

I can’t begin to tell you how much that broke my heart.

Look, let me say a few things here that are obvious. The vast majority of Trump voters are not bad people. Most aren’t racist, or misogynist, or filled with hatred. And most of them certainly wouldn’t want to make a 15-year old girl cry and fear for her safety. Trump voters, as far as I can figure, were motivated principally by economic concerns. They believe -- rightly or wrongly -- that recovery from the financial crisis is sluggish, that their jobs are in jeopardy and their livelihoods in peril. I don’t agree with that assessment, but I understand the unease. Most adults have felt something like it at some point in our lives.

But here’s an important distinction: While most Trump voters are not racists or misogynists, they have elected a racist and a misogynist. It sends a message, to Americans and to the world, that this is who we are now -- a nation that willfully disrespects women, that judges people based on their country of origin or their sexual orientation, that rejects Muslims while providing safe haven to the intolerant and the spiteful. It sends the message that we are an ugly people motivated by bluster and bile.

Except I don’t think that’s who we really are. History is peppered with moments like this, when a man like Trump ascends to power despite our claims to logic and reason. It never lasts. Either the country falls, or it comes to its senses. This, I sincerely hope, is buffonery’s last gasp, a final violent thrashing before it dies forever. If we prove too strong to fall, we will heal. And hopefully Trump’s base will come to realize that brash indignity is not the mark of a leader, nor is it the ethos by which we should live our lives.

Mostly, I hope the girl in that honors class never feels she lives in a country that rejects her. Perhaps this will inspire her to act. And in the ensuing decades, when she’s fought successfully to create a better world, who knows? Her name may just appear on a ballot. My pen may just fill in the oval next to her name, and our democracy will only feel the 2016 election as a faint scar on its underbelly, faded and healed over with time.

That’s how this thing is supposed to work. I choose to believe -- and to hope -- that that is who we really are.