The voting is over and the counting continues. It is not as important if your candidate won or lost as it is what we learned from all this and where we go as a civilized society from here.

At least, I think we are a civilized society, aren’t we?

I think we are, but in recent months leading up to this election, I have to admit, at times, we looked like two ant colonies fighting over a breadcrumb. The ants who won will go back to their colony and feast on that crumb for a few moments, then go about their daily lives of building a bigger and better ant colony, while the losers will find another crumb somewhere else, enjoy it just as well, and then return to what ants do every day.

That is where we find ourselves right now. America will wake up this morning and do what we did last week. But I ask that we take the time to learn from what has transpired over the course of this election.

So, what exactly did we learn?

I believe we learned that the apathy of the past might be just that, a thing of the past, evident by the record-setting number of Americans who voted this year. That is a good thing.

I believed we learned that, collectively, We The People still have a voice and that our democratic republic has the power to survive, regardless of who resides in the White House. A good thing.

I believe we learned that our society is nearly equally politically divided and that is neither a good thing or bad. Some may even consider it healthy, but the intolerance that we have injected into that divide is a bad thing.

What I don’t believe we learned is to respect each other regardless of political party and that, at the end of the day, we all pretty much want the same things and that, if we can respect each other, the path to what we all want to accomplish as a nation can be smooth and rewarding.

But, unfortunately, we are not there, yet. Therefore, I am afraid that path to prosperity will continue to be filled with gridlock and political potholes until we learn to accept and compromise with people on the other side.

Our Founders knew this, too. George Washington dedicated a large portion of his farewell address warning Americans of the dangers political factions (parties) could bring to a nation. He said, “Factions may now and then answer popular ends, that are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government …”

John Adams wrote, “There is nothing I dread as much as a division of the republic into two great parties … This in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under of Constitution.”

Thomas Jefferson wrote, “If I could not go to heaven but with a political party, I would decline to go.”

Today we find ourselves in the exact moment in history our Founders feared the most, hyper-partisanship doing more harm than good to a nation of diverse citizens who are being dragged into this fight with an openly biased national media and billions of campaign dollars spent on dividing us even further. What kind of future will we have if this continues?

I was reminded of this on the day after the election, when Mother Nature blessed Northeast Michigan with a sunny, 65-degree day, perfect for golf, which afforded me an opportunity I couldn’t turn down. Four of us went: two Trump voters, one Biden voter, and me, the lone independent, so how could we not talk politics? I wish Biden, Trump, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell could have joined us. They would have learned what we, as a nation, need to learn.

What?, you might ask.

Well, folks, it is that we respect each other. We respect each other’s decision to vote for their candidate of choice. We agree, although the country is divided, that we can have a civil (and enjoyable) conversation. We didn’t call each other third-grade nicknames. We didn’t tear up the scorecard in front of the clubhouse. We didn’t seek to change the rules after the round was completed. And, most of all, we agreed to do this again in the near future.

The election is over.

We decided who we want to represent us.

The question remains on whether we are going to continue to fight over breadcrumbs for the next four years or go to work and, together, build a bigger and better ant colony.

Greg Awtry is the former publisher of the Scottsbluff (Neb.) Star-Herald and Nebraska’s York News-Times. He is now retired and living in Hubbard Lake. Greg can be contacted at gregawtry@awtry.com.