The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog.

My stuffing is made. If the weather permits, we’ll be together with family for the Thanksgiving holiday. Friends and acquaintances keep reaching out, asking “what are we going to do?” They’re not referring to how best to carve the turkey, which football games to watch, or whether to tune in to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, a century-old tradition for some in all but the World War II years.

Instead, those friends are wringing their hands at the outcome of the election. They are angry. They are incredulous. They are frightened. What they saw as an aberration in 2016 has become a defining reality in 2024.

Nearly eight years ago, hundreds of thousands of women, and many men, demonstrated in cities across the country against the person they saw as an outlier President who lost the popular vote. It was January 21, 2017, and they wore pink hats with little cat ears and carried signs reading “Make America Kind Again” and “Human Rights = Women’s Rights.” Some want to march again in January, 2025, but many more, I sense, are fatigued and dispirited. Back then, Donald Trump seemed the only sexual predator dominating the political scene. Today, that proclivity seems a requirement for selection by the 47th President-elect to be in his cabinet.

All those marchers back in 2017 thought that their view of the American electorate was the prevailing one. They believed that their engagement, on that day and over the next four years, would matter. And it did.

There were the 2020 elections, and gains with the midterms of 2018 and 2022, but, within their majorities, there were tectonic changes taking place in the electorate that they missed or dismissed. Now, amidst the global movement for change and against incumbency, the tide has turned, leaving bitterness and exhaustion in its wake. There will be plenty of time for the could’a, would’a, shoulda’s. The granular sifting of the results is only helpful to the extent that the Democrats are capable of learning what they missed in the electorate, what their strategic shortcomings were and what changes are required in their approaches to policy and messaging practices. But, let’s be honest, there’s a limit to what we can do as individuals.

Yes, the despondent ones can address their concerns by reaching out to interest groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, the Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood and local food banks and inquire what their needs are for time and treasure. But, in the short term, I think many of us just need to heal. And that’s okay. We need to focus elsewhere – as I’ve said before, on family, friends, and local communities; on art and music and literature; even on sports. All of which speak to our shared humanity.

We have to take care of ourselves and of our loved ones. If our candidate won, we have to stop gloating. If our candidate lost, we have to move beyond grieving. We have to get off the debilitating treadmill of 24-hour news consumption.

This Thursday, among the things I will express thanks for are this year’s peaceful transfer of power. I appreciate the good people in Congress, Democrats and Republicans, who still have the courage to speak out and strategize against the immoral, the unqualified and the self-interested. I’m grateful for people working at the local level to improve our lives and for those in the media who are intent on constantly improving their coverage of things we have a need to know.

Yes, much more remains to be done. But, for now, we should cut ourselves some slack, give ourselves a break, and reflect on what we hold most dear. As one social commentator advised, “Don’t let Trump live in your brain like RFK Jr.’s worm.”

A happy Thanksgiving, a peaceful Thanksgiving, to all my readers, for whom I remain most thankful.