We must think historically to cool down our post-election emotions. Historical perspectives clarify our recent presidential election and lower its post-election temperature.

Let’s start with feudalism, of kings and lords, which we inherited from our Anglo-European past which had ruled the known world for over a millennium. Then, the American Revolution came and overthrew feudalism and ushered in a new democratic system, governed by ourselves and leaders chosen by us according to our own precepts of freedom. This post-feudal new world lasted for over two centuries — until this past Nov. 5.

Contrary to its conventional images of the Dark Ages and oppression, a few scholars have considered feudalism as an ideal system of social order and as a pre-modern community of peace and harmony. As historical fact, this idyllic feudalism, where lords and peasants lived in good order and harmony, came to its end: Earth-shaking events were coming in waves, most notably in scientific discoveries, religious revolts, radical perspectives in Renaissance and Enlightenment, and the emboldening New World — which told feudal rulers that their time was up.

Two types of responses, quite fateful for their historic consequences, emerged from feudal societies to face the inevitable “modern” world: One from the Old World and the other from the New World.

The Old World, mostly European, decided to welcome the new developments by prudently combining their existing tradition, religion and habits with the new ways of thinking — half-feudal and half-democratic — that would accommodate the changes without destroying their old system. With this new combination, where society is modern but people think traditional, the Old World kept its community and social order in a form generally known as “social democracy” which continues today in most European nations.

The New World produced a rather different response. With the backdrop of open land and physical distance from the Old World, the American colonies chose a completely radical break from feudalism. Following the Revolution, the New World realized humanity’s fondest dream of “liberal democracy” (emphasizing individual liberty, unlike Europe’s social democracy), as the new model for idealized self-governance and America’s own self-image as “the Shining City on a Hill.”

Liberal democracy satisfied the restless American soul for nearly two centuries, first with wide open frontier society of freedom and equality and later with consumer capitalism to its heart’s content. No nation on Earth or in history had enjoyed the range of physical comfort and convenience like post-World War II American consumers.

The age of affluence was upon America, which created an entirely new kind of human generations and personality: The typically solitary American consumer lived in a post-human society, always restless in search of something better for himself. He wanted everything he consumed to be better than before, faster and louder, more thrilling and pleasing.

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Hollywood responded with the entertainment revolution, expanding three television channels to 3,000 with cable TV, then to three million with the internet to meet the new demands. America even conquered the time-and-space limitations of nature: entertainment was now always available across time and space — night or day, here or yonder, at will. Upon the consumer’s instant command, movie stars sang, danced, and told jokes and athletes ran and jumped — all to please the new lord. In this society where everything seemed possible and available, the line of sanity between reality and fantasy blurred, and the largely frivolous “choices” covered up the harsh conditions of powerlessness for the masses under the liberal-democratic version of the American Dream.

Liberal democracy is both a blessing and a curse. As a blessing, it allows maximum individual indulgences. As the curse, the very nature of individual choice makes it difficult for us to control the consequences of our own choice. Such a system requires a high degree of citizen intelligence and social consciousness. It’s like giving a child a loaded gun and expecting a happy ending. With the gun, the child already possesses the power not to be responsible, like those who struggle with credit cards, even with pre-set limits. No such systems ever survived their own indulgences, and America’s libertine (woke?) anything-goes culture — expertly orchestrated by America’s best and brightest — could not moderate its own civic degeneration. These master psychologists, working for politicians and corporations, kept us deep in our own cesspool, flailing with minor daily irritations that morphed into major political wraths.

Under Democrats, life was a sweet dream only in illusion or hypocrisy as our economic cruelty did not (and does not) allow such fantasies to become reality. With the world’s largest wealth-poverty gap, individual lives can improve indefinitely only in Hollywood dreams and Disney fantasies. Soon Democrats, already characterized as an “elitist” party, were seen as largely unrelated to the actual daily lives of working Americans. Still dreaming of the pre-capitalist era, liberal America had become ungovernable and its lives unlivable.

The stage was now set for Donald Trump who promised to clear the liberal swamp with his imperial magic wand. Back in power, he is remaking everything in America except money and entertainment. This way, Trump is having the best of both worlds — populist and capitalist: He gets votes from dumb masses and dollars from smart billionaires. Democrats are just in shock and awe of his genius.

As democracy replaced feudalism, Trump’s imperial democracy is replacing liberal democracy. In this new era that began on Nov. 5, we have taken our first baby steps, like Adam and Eve after the fall, toward an entirely unknown future — both foreboding and expectant. There, waiting for us is the judgment on the liberal fruit of indulgence that we had picked and consumed, a gift from the capitalist-serpent who whispered to us that we could live “as gods.”

Historians would write the rest.

Jon Huer, columnist for the Recorder and retired professor, lives in Greenfield and writes for posterity.