I hope.

Hope when this torturous election is over, some degree of peace and harmony will begin to bring together the citizens of our divided nation.

But at the moment, my hope is a guttering candle in the wind.

Because, as even a casual study of history reveals, that seldom happens, and anyone who posits a past age of universal harmony and brotherhood is naive. Indeed, I’d call a person who insists there was such an epoch, and will be again, “a dreamer.”

A dreamer because, as the late comedian and famed cynic George Carlin once said in another context: “People would have to be asleep to believe it.”

Our founders were not asleep. They were wide awake, brilliant and careful students of history. They knew that if you get enough people together in a room to hash things out, there’s going to be a lot of shouting. The Revolutionary War generation counted on us working things out. They based their new system of government on the ability of generations as-yet unborn to get things done.

Sometimes the machine has worked, other times it has conked, but at the moment, we’re not doing a good job of that.

One idea the founders would have turned thumbs down on is Christian Nationalism. As some sort of reaction to the reign of Louis XIV, their arguments against a state religion were based on the Sun King’s regime, including his treatment of the Huguenots and other religious minorities. And he was far from alone

Yet for all of its flaws, and for all of the progress marred by fits and starts, the human community in which I and my contemporaries and generations before grew up was, on the whole, more amiable.

Of course, we as Americans have always had serious problems to work out. After all, we fought a Civil War over issues that took four years and more than 600,000 dead to settle. And we are just now coming to grips with the shameful way we treated those who were here for thousands of years before our ancestors arrived on North American shores.

Yet, I seem to remember a time when neighbors Smith and Johnson could talk things over without screaming, or throwing punches around. Without Smith declaring Johnson “the spawn of Satan” and settling on his own shoulders the unmerited mantle of righteousness, or without Johnson referring to Smith as Adolf Hitler.

My father often told the story of when dad called our neighbor across the street, Jack Moon, a derogatory term, and Matt promptly reported his words to Mr. Moon.

“My daddie say you’re a some a ‘nich.” The two men later laughed about it.

We were lucky to grow up in that simpler time. So much hooey in the air today. I think it’s enough to hasten a maggot’s departure from a steaming pile.

Our nation is once again a house divided against itself, and I fear the consequence will be that at some moment of national emergency, we will no longer be capable of standing together. We have enemies across the various ponds of the world sowing dissension and suspicion. We are being manipulated and many don’t even know it.

Recently heard the great Dave Mason on the radio, singing:

“So let’s leave it alone, cause we don’t see eye-to-eye.

There ain’t no good guys, there aint no bad guys

There’s only you and me and we just disagree.”

Of course the context above was the breakup of a marriage. But its message is certainly pertinent to us 47 years after its release.

Robert Whale can be reached at robert.whale@soundpublishing.com.