I have written substantially about political history. I now beg a moment for historic politics, specifically the historic moment we experienced on November 5.

Although this blog’s political statements are usually indirect, the product of the historical perspective it provides, it is also my view that silence in the face of pressing moral issues is moral capitulation. I do not expect to persuade anyone to walk back their support for the president-elect. Voters have had nearly a decade to sort out their view of Donald Trump. I aim instead to share how I am sorting out my feelings about the election outcome. I hope it can help readers work through the moment and prepare for the future.

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Like many Canadians, I grew up to a great extent on American media. I have had the genuine privilege of visiting more than half of the states. My terminal degree is in U.S. history. I have taught the whole span of U.S. history as well as the Constitution. I have lived in this country for more than a decade and paid taxes every single year. I have met people from all sorts of backgrounds. Most of my friends and much of my community are on this side of the border. I am not a citizen, however.

This is not an objection to naturalization laws. It is a comment about powerlessness. Since 2012, with one exception, I have experienced every presidential and midterm election on U.S. soil. On the whole, as a resident alien, I have been a witness rather than a participant. I have seen debates unfold and sought to engage with issues that touch me and the people around me, though always without having a formal say. Perhaps there is something deeply American in feeling alienated from political processes, but, in my case, there is no vote to offer some tangible sense of political expression.

Suddenly, on Tuesday morning, I was part of a community of 71 million Americans who also felt powerless. Don’t imagine that I relish it. I felt for all of the people who have cause to fear for their rights, their well-being, and their common institutions under a party that will soon control all three branches of the federal government. Admittedly, I have less to fear than others. I am a white, middle-class man—and I have a peaceful, safe country to turn to, should I want to leave.

That being said, my immediate instinct, on seeing the results, on Wednesday morning, was not to start packing. Like many others, I reminded myself that the country had not changed overnight; we now simply knew what the country actually looks like. Perhaps there is a level of white, liberal conceit in having believed that this country was better than one politician in particular. I have since seen people from historically marginalized communities argue, with a shrug, that the country that chose that very politician is the one they have known all along.

Still, on Wednesday morning, millions felt cold, empty, numb. As it often goes, Springsteen lyrics captured the mood:

When the promise is broken

You go on living

But it steals something from down in your soul

Like when the truth is spoken

And it don’t make no difference

Something in your heart goes cold

People who describe themselves as Democratic, moderate, liberal, center-left, socialist, independent, or anti-Trump reeled from shock, and sadness, and anger.

Many have also felt an upsetting sense of betrayal. Friends, colleagues, and neighbors voted for Trump. They shouldn’t owe it to anyone to vote for this or that candidate. They only owe their choice to their own conscience. The betrayal lies rather in their decision to vote for a man whose values seem so at odds with their own—and yet maybe aren’t. Maybe they are finally revealing who they are. Betrayal, also, because their way of thinking, their justifications are, for others, incomprehensible. It feels like a different world and no amount of rational, well-intended explanation and no amount of yelling will bridge the divide. Perhaps everyone must live and die with their own stupid ideas and let others do as much with theirs.

In either case, since Wednesday, many have had to go in search of new moorings.

I mentioned political history—there should be something in history to provide solace. In an ideal world, historians like yours truly would eagerly provide context and precedents to help us accept and make sense of the world. They might revel in an appreciation that, in uncertain times, “we have been through worse,” “nothing is new under the sun,” and “this too shall pass”; revel, too, in an ability to smile or laugh at the hubris of our intense presentism. Alas, we are human. We have lives, jobs, families, neighbors, economic concerns, values, beliefs, legal protections, hopes for the future, services on which we depend, etc. Few people—scholars included—are happy to sit on the sidelines and indifferently let the world take its course.

In the lead-up to the election, both powerless and anxious about the outcome, I had read chapter after chapter of Herodotus. I reflected on the hubris of ancient leaders not unlike Shelley’s famous (and fictional) Ozymandias. In the larger arc of history, the deeds of kings and warlords are often laughably insignificant. That too has proven poor consolation. Their deeds came at the cost of untold lives. Battles orphaned thousands of children; plagues destroyed entire communities; an immense number of people led miserable lives as slaves; and roaming armies ravaged farming communities and port cities, leaving people to starve. The footnotes of history conceal missed opportunities to get things right. Time overcame Ozymandias, but Ozymandias commanded his time.

Our present-day Ozymandias will, in January, have as much power as anyone can hold within the American political system. This person has enacted family separation in immigrant communities, eroded reproductive rights, incited a domestic uprising, promised to jail his political opponents, damaged relations with long-time U.S. allies, and refused to endorse legislation he had proposed for electoral gain. The character of this person—his ego and temper, a refusal to ever recognize guilt or error, the brazen lies, his conduct with women, his contempt for the law, and his fascination with authoritarian power—all promise much worse.

We can take comfort in that “it’s only four years,” a blip in the larger scheme of things. But that won’t matter to people who will lose their health insurance, who will suffer hate crimes because of lies propagated at the highest level, who will be unable to feed themselves because of a tariff-induced inflationary cycle, or who will lose their lives because the White House refused to support allied countries.

I don’t believe in the lessons of history, nor in the comforts of history as we usually understand them. But any scrutiny of the past shows unambiguously that people can act on their society and effect change. We have seen it in the form of a presidential candidate who has done immense harm to civil political discourse, to a commitment to truth long taken for granted, and to respect for the Constitution and its protection of fundamental human rights. We must now also see it in the form of a wide-awake grassroots movement that will block every assault on those basic rights, every deviation from the rule of law, and every policy that punishes the working class.

The verdict of the ballot box is one form of power. There are many others—and each will be needed to keep the next administration in line. Thus far, there has been no holding-to-account for any of the misdeeds I have described and the many that I haven’t. The election was, unfortunately, the lesser battle. Now, from despair, must come far more trying work. We must now prove to ourselves and to future generations that accountability and justice can prevail.

The fate of the American promise depends on it.