Maine voted one way in the 2024 presidential election and the nation voted another.

An altogether bruising year in politics culminated in a deafening few weeks in the lead up to the election last Tuesday. All eyes were, relentlessly, on the White House. There was some consensus that the election was the most consequential in U.S. history; that democracy was on the ballot; that the vote for the presidency was, in the end, a vote for or against fascism. 

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

Sooner or later, we will see how much of this begins coming to pass. In the meantime, those who chose not to support Trump must take their energies, anxieties and enthusiasms elsewhere. Although coping is well and good, channeling these into positive change is a must.

This editorial board has written on a couple of occasions in recent weeks on the importance of maintaining calm and civility. 

A number of our readers responded to these words with a degree of disgust. We get it. In a sweltering climate of “fight, fight, fight” (or, indeed, of “when we fight, we win”) there seemed to be little room for anything other than outright condemnation of the candidate(s) or of the contest playing out on our airwaves and on the screens of our phones. 

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

If the outcome of Nov. 5 didn’t go your way, if it left you feeling bereft and scared for yourself or for others, you’re not alone. If you’d like people to be better to one another in general, if you’re utterly sick and tired of the coverage and the bickering, you’re not alone.

We’ll repeat today what we said back on Oct. 27: “A return to that particular local lens, a return to day-to-day clarity in spite of the increasingly noxious fog of the ‘national narrative,’ is something that might require a special, concerted effort. It’s an effort that will pay off handsomely. And if any state can do it, Maine can do it.”

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

We can look out for a neighbor, as we do. We can offer company to people who find themselves alone, we can log volunteer hours where they are desperately needed, ask somebody on the side of the road if they need a hand. We can work together, in small ways that make an enormous day-to-day difference, to ensure the state’s most vulnerable are ready for the onset of the state’s cruelest season. Year after year, we see that we are capable of all of this in Maine … and we should take pride in the fact that we are still damn good at it. 

The neighborhoods and the streets we live on are the places upon which our concern and care can leave a positive impression almost right away. By comparison, the hand-wringing over the most hotly debated and stress-inducing national matters – the southern border, the future of the Supreme Court, the question of trade policy – seems almost abstract.

Resisting one or other political outcome is one process. Working effectively within an outcome, once reached, is another. You’d be forgiven for assuming that common ground might not be reachable at this moment. Luckily, that’s not at all true.  

Glimmers of it were already in evidence around the state last week. 

“It’s been heartbreaking to me to watch relationships and communities shattered over differences that are often just differences about how we get to something that is a common goal,” Carlene Hill Byron told the Press Herald after the returns. 

Byron and her friend Barbara Lanfer kept a plan to meet up to plant daffodils in Libbytown on the morning of Nov. 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 for these goals,” Lanfer said. “I’d like to see the country be able to do that better.”

Amen, Barbara. We’d like that too.