Post-Election Stress Disorder (PESD)

The Hermit Philosopher has been dismayed, discomfited, and disheartened for nearly two months – since the morning of November 9, specifically. It has been hard for him to accept that our next President will be an egomaniacal, misogynistic, buffoon and that his party will soon control all three branches of the federal government.

Nevertheless, that is the situation. It is not a delusion. And we will live through it, just as we have lived through other uncertain periods.

One precarious time in our history stands out in the HP’s mind. It was 1861, and Lincoln was being inaugurated on the eve of the Civil War. The election that previous November had not been the cause of PESD that year, but many in the population must have felt similar symptoms.

Recognizing this, Lincoln spoke words that might bring comfort to us today. Here is the memorable passage with which he closed his first inaugural address:

[If] the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.

Though passion may have strained [us], it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Despite the passions that strain us today, we can do naught but hope that those better angels will bring mystic chords of humility and common sense to the new administration during the next four years.