My favorite high school teacher has this poster in his classroom: “Don’t just do something, sit there.” It’s a wise message for the first week after the crisis: I worry if we jump into “The Response Plan” too early, we will repeat the same mistakes that brought us here. You can already see it happening in our newsfeeds, as everyone’s plan for the Age of Trump seems to be: “Everybody just needs to double down on my worldview.” Carving out time for reflection in spaces outside of campaign politics—reading spiritual books rather than pundits’ hot takes, watching a play rather than a cable news show, reaching out to real people rather than ranting about the latest stranger’s horrible comment thread—is crucial if we hope to shine a path out of here.

I also, however, believe in Roberto Unger’s insight about hope and action: “It is a common mistake to suppose that hope is the cause of action. Hope is the consequence of action. You act, and as a result, you begin to hope.”

So, this week, what then should we do? My proposal: alongside carving out time for reflection and offering immediate care to our neighbors, we should spend this week making a commitment. Concretely, we should make a commitment to a certain amount of time and a certain amount of money that we are ready to consistently give to our country in the coming years. Very specifically, we should each commit to a number of hours we are ready to give each week and a percentage of our paycheck we are ready to give each month.

See, in the end, the projects we care about survive on time and money. Some projects are more time-based and some projects are more money-based, but the same rule applies to all civic projects: if they lose hours and lose cash, they die. If they gain hours and gain cash, they grow.

We have a choice of how we want to primarily express our citizenship in the coming years: through virtue signaling or through civic work.

The Age of Trump will give us endless opportunities to signal our virtue. Each scandal will give us an opportunity to broadcast our rejection of Trumpism and validate our place among the redeemed.

Vocalized resistance to Trumpism is part of the path forward, but it is only a small part. The idea that there is an elect few who are aware and innocent of social sin is wrong and dangerous. We all are susceptible to the patterns of thought and action that produce our social ills. To think that it is only the others, over there, who have fallen to racism and materialism and militarism is to ignore our own weaknesses and to distract ourselves from preventing our own worst impulses from festering. The greatest atrocities in human history have been committed by those who believed themselves to be the chosen moral few, set apart from the “vulgar mob.”

That’s why the center of our citizenship in the Age of Trump must instead be civic work: real time and real money being given to real groups working on real projects aimed at ameliorating real problems. The rate at which these projects will grow and these problems will be addressed—the rate at which we will overcome Trumpism and get back on track towards that kind and welcoming America we believe in—will be determined by how much time and how much money we give: by how many hours we give each week and by how much of our paychecks we give each month.

So, what then should we do this week? Here’s two concrete steps:

1. This week, get together with your friends and family to make your patriotic commitments: pledge to each other how many hours each week and how much of your paycheck each month you are ready to give. If you can, lock in a specific time each week (“Saturday mornings” “Wednesday and Thursday nights”) for your hours at first: you’re more likely to keep your pledge if you develop a weekly routine.
2. Next week, spend the first hours of your time commitment thinking about which civic arena you want to serve and act in. If you are lost as to where to get involved, one way to orient yourself is to think about three different types of civic arenas: communities, issues, and institutions.

One way to get involved is to draw closer to a community: to get more deeply involved in the lives and struggles of, say, a neighborhood or a town, an immigrant community or a religious community, an age group or a special affinity group. It’s to become more invested in your town’s Iraq War veterans community or Somali immigrant community or small business community. It’s to step up in your church or at your school or on your block. It’s to think about the hopes and needs of the elderly or of foster kids or of prisoners in your state.

A second way to get involved is to draw closer to an issue: to become obsessed with a public policy area. You’d be surprised how much of an impact you can have by spending a year getting into the weeds of an issue, keeping up with the issue in the news, raising awareness about it with your community, and getting involved with political action surrounding it. The more narrow you get with the issue you choose, the more national your scope can be. The more local you get with the scope you choose, the more broader your issue area can be.

A third way to get involved is to draw closer to an institution: to play a part in crafting how, say, our press, our universities, our government agencies, our school systems, our religious institutions, our unions, our political parties, our legal systems, or our medical systems can better live out and extend their missions of serving the public interest. We need civic innovators and institutional revivalists now, more than ever in our lifetimes.

Now that you have hours committed each week, you have time to take test-drives to find which of these civic arenas is the best fit for you.  Civic action has a momentum to it: dip your toes in and you will be swept up.

It is through our example—our example of what the Good America looks like—that we will overcome the Age of Trump. They shall know us by our fruits.

What America needed more than anything from this election was solidarity: the feeling that we are all in this together, that we have a shared direction, that we have found common ground. Instead, the greatest threat in our lifetime to our national solidarity—to our neighborliness, to our decency, to our commitment to shared endeavors—has arrived. We thought we were better than this. But we have been blindsided. And we are confused and afraid.

When we are confused and afraid, we are tempted by twin evils.

First, we are tempted to quit. We are tempted to run away to Canada, or run away to irony, or run away to fantasy. We are tempted to hide away and build our bunkers.

Second, we are tempted to blame. We are tempted to search for our scapegoats and fall guys. We are tempted to tie some people and groups to the whipping posts and place our hurt onto them.

Our first task on this dark week is to resist these immediate temptations.

Today, we don’t need quitters, we need patriots. Before we are activists, we are citizens. Before we are citizens, we are neighbors. Before we can change a community, we must be a member of it. And to be a member of a community is to love it: to not quit it when it needs you the most.

Today, we don’t need blame, we need direction. We know one way these next few years could go: with every Trump scandal, we could re-litigate the campaign, going back and forth on whether Hillary Clinton or Jill Stein, Julian Assange or James Comey, Bernie Sanders or Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is the most to blame. But if we want to get out of this mess, we need to go another way: to take time to reflect on these past years and develop a positive direction towards a better Democratic Party, a better progressive movement, and a better liberal culture.

Our second task on this dark week is to remember the message that gave us Hope almost a decade ago: “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the one’s we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

Next week, we still have many of the same challenges that we had last week. Our economy still leaves a quarter of our children in poverty. Our criminal justice system still cages two million human beings. One in four Americans still say that they have “no one with whom they can talk about their personal troubles or triumphs.” Our Congress is still being corrupted by monied interests. And our climate is still changing.

Even in the Age of Trump—especially in the Age of Trump—we must not cease being the change that we seek in these arenas. These projects—of turning strangers into neighbors, of making the economy work for everybody, and of freeing our democracy from the grip of money—need more of our hands and hearts and heads. If you have never participated in civic life before or devoted a couple of hours a week to public projects before, now is the time to step up.

Additionally, of course, over the coming months and years, there will be more grave challenges that arise out of the Age of Trump. Brave patriots will set up projects of resistance to secure the protection of the vulnerable, the empowerment of the marginalized, and the preservation of our precious inheritances.

These projects of resistance will especially need our help. Now is the time to report for duty.

Our final task on this dark morning is to commit to live out, in our own lives and communities, our vision of what we believe the Good America could look like. We have lost the White House, the Congress, and the Courts. But we have not lost our lives, our neighborhoods, and our communities. We have not lost the example we can set with ourselves, our friends, and our neighbors of the type of country we want to live in.

If we believe in a welcoming America, we can practice hospitality with all our hearts. If we believe in a decent America, we can practice decency with our hearts. If we believe in a fair America, we can practice fairness with all our hearts. We can bind together with others who believe in that same America– the America that sees itself as Great only when it is Good.

President Trump can’t stop us from showing this country what the politics of joy and justice looks like. President Trump can’t stop us from showing this world what the Good America—the America of extraordinary ordinary citizens practicing open-hearted devotion and practical creativity in neighborhoods all across the country — looks like.

It is through our example that we will overcome the Age of Trump.

This week, we should think about how we, personally, want to live out the Good America during the next four years. In my own path towards living it out, I turn to Francis– the pope and the saint.

Pope Francis once said that the thing he thought his church needed most was “the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful… nearness, proximity.” He said he wanted his church to be “a field hospital after battle.” He explained: “It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds… start from the ground up.”

There are a lot of wounds in this country. There were wounds before last night and there sure as hell are a lot more wounds after last night. In the Good America that I believe in, we would be like Francis’ field hospitals for each other: we would draw nearer to each other rather than fear each other; we would tend to each other’s wounds before we sneer at each other’s deficiencies. In the Age of Trump, I hope we can show our country what great field hospitals we can be.

St. Francis put it even better, centuries ago:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.

What America still needs more than anything is solidarity. I have immense faith that we can build it. But, now more than ever, we are reminded that it will take hard work.

Our generation’s greatest challenge begins today.

In these next few years, we test our mettle.

Let’s get to Work.

Tomorrow, the second Wednesday in November, is the eight year anniversary of our generation’s biggest political mistake.

In early 2008, a young senator from Illinois gave us a warning. “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time,” he told us. “We are the one’s we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

The day after we elected Barack Obama president, we decided to ignore his message. We treated Election Day as the end, rather than the beginning, of our Work. We packed up our “Yes We Can!” signs, patted ourselves on the back for making history, and waited for the Change we were promised.

But the Change didn’t come. Sure, a heck of a lot of progress was made — just ask someone who can now get married or who now has health insurance — but the deep Change we dreamed of in 2008 — a change in the way the political game was played, a fresh faith in government, a united country — never materialized. Disappointment and disillusionment abounds.

See, the young senator’s warning was right: change did not come from waiting for some other person, even if that person was an the honorable President. The hope we were waiting for, the change that we sought, remained ourselves, the citizens. But we did not learn this important lesson in time for our first presidency.

Today, eight years later, we vote again. And tomorrow, we decide if we repeat our mistake with our second presidency. This week is our test: did we learn our lesson?

Donald Trump is the candidate of repeating our mistake. Americans feel like we don’t have a voice. In response, Donald Trump has said “I am your voice.” Americans feel like our system is broken. In response, Donald Trump has said “I alone can fix it.”.

To elect someone who believes such things — and is shameless enough to say them out loud — is to disrespect ourselves, to abdicate our dominion, and to run away from our Work. It would be a failure to remember, as President Obama often reminds us, “that America is not about what can be done for us…it is about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government.”

Today, to affirmatively reject “I am your voice” and “I alone can fix it” at the polls will be a beautiful way to bury our mistake– a testament to our refreshed memory that only we are our voice and that only we, together, can fix our broken system.

But tomorrow is the real test. It’s when we decide, once again, if Election Day was the end or the beginning of the Work.

There is a lot of apocalyptic talk about the coming weeks. Flights to Canada and stocking up canned goods in bunkers and the like. We should cut that out. I am reminded of the Bob Dylan song, “Let Me Die In My Footsteps”:

I will not go down under the ground.
‘Cause somebody tells me that death’s coming round.
I will not carry myself down to die.
When I go to my grave, my head will be high.
Let me die in my footsteps
before I go down under the ground.

I don’t know if I’m smart but I think I can see
When someone is pulling the wool over me.
And if the war comes and death’s all around.
Let me die on this land ‘fore I die underground.
Let me die in my footsteps
Before I go down under the ground.

If “I am your voice” and “I alone can fix it” wins, I’m not flying to Canada or going underground… I’m showing up for Work.

And if he loses, I’m showing up for Work, too. There are too many wounds that need healing, too many problems that need fixing, too many projects that need heads, hands and hearts, and too many strangers that need neighbors to not show up for Work, no matter who wins. Because, in the end, our Work, not our President, will determine our destiny.

Hillary Clinton is right when she says “America is great because America is good.” I have faith in my fellow Americans that we will make the right decision, today and tomorrow. I have faith in my fellow Americans that we will die on this land ‘fore we die underground.