By Edward Miller

The recent election disturbed more than the nation’s political balance. It set our moral compass askew.

I love compasses, always have. Growing up I transformed the city park surrounding my home into a child’s wilderness to practice navigating by compass from the iron bridge to my home a quarter of a mile away. That I could actually see my destination didn’t matter. I was master of my journey because I had mastered a simple tool.

Over the years I’ve learned more about compasses:

• A tiny magnet floating on a pin can respond to the earth’s magnetic field. All it needs is to be free of competing magnetic forces nearby. It thinks globally so you can act locally.
• A compass is never “accurate,” that is, it doesn’t point to the geographic North Pole. It points to the magnetic north pole, which is about a thousand miles away in Canada. If your journey is longer than mine to the iron bridge and back, you need to understand how to calculate the built-in error of a compass. That error is called the “deviation,” and it’s not a constant; it depends where you are.
• Compasses don’t tell you where you are. They are only useful if you know where you want to go.

Consider the compass a metaphor framing my post-election distress: How do I navigate when the nation’s moral compass deviates from all I have stood for in my life?

Here are some of my predicaments:

• How do I articulate my view of our president-elect? His transgressions, deceptions and intolerable behaviors are innumerable. I need a phrase in conversation, not a soliloquy. So here what my moral compass has settled on: “Ignorant sociopathic bigot.” That hardly covers it, but in the interests of brevity it will have to do.

• How can I respect the office of the president but not the president himself? Easy. I’ve lived through the Vietnam era of Lyndon Baines Johnson and the Watergate era of Richard Milhous Nixon. I’ve learned to honor the office while holding its incumbent accountable. It’s a practical and nonpartisan approach to the conundrum.

• How can I hew to my principles and find my way while the compass is spinning?

The four primary directions on a compass rose are North, South, East and West. These are called the cardinal points. What are the cardinal points on a moral compass?

One is Fairness. If something isn’t fair, it’s unjust, and therefore unacceptable as a guide.

Another is Truthfulness: If something is false, it will lead us astray.

A third is Compassion: Narcissists travel alone The rest of us need companions.

A fourth is Commitment: Principles without action are mere platitudes.

How can a single citizen act in defiance of those who disdain these principles in pursuit of their own self-aggrandizement? Speak out. Support others who do the same. Let no casual conversation pass with uncontested sexist and racist slurs.

My compass leads me to facilitating voter registration and fighting voter suppression. I hope all who read this will pick a cardinal point on the moral compass and set out on a journey to sustain democracy. There’s no longer room on the trail for bystanders.