For years, decades — probably centuries — Americans have told themselves and each other that the most important thing they could do for their country was to vote. And it was true.

Possibly the only thing they could do that was more important was to go to war and fight for their country when called upon.

America has suffered many crises that compounded the the functions of government. The Civil War was arguably the greatest, but world wars, Vietnam and Korea were also serious strains on our democracy. And wars weren’t our only tests.

In our two centuries-plus, we have had to deal with crises — some real, some imagined. But all were situations that had to be dealt with.

Now, we have had another, and we can only hope that a few decades from now citizens will look back on it and see it as no more harmful than the many bumps and bruises we’ve been able to overcome in our glorious history.

We have seen, in the past decade, or so, more and more disagreement on more and more issues. These disagreements used to be factors that we could actually take pride in. After all, how many countries revere in their government the fact that it is founded on the will of the majority of its people?

We could disagree with each other, but, in the end, we accepted majority rule and the fact that each individual isn’t always right. We can each have a view and express it openly, but, if it doesn’t carry enough weight, it will give way to the view that does.

Today, disagreement has taken new and dangerous strides. It now has crossed the boundary into resentment, overreaction, even hatred.

We must not let this go any further. We must stop it before it becomes the accepted way of life. We must not allow political antagonism to devolve into political animosity.

The only avenue back to reasonable and practical political debate is to see that all views are taken into account and get us back into the mindset where elections tell us what we truly want. We can no longer rely on only a few to set our government policies and call them the will of America.

Each citizen qualified to vote owed it to the rest of us, as well as to themselves, to have done so. If we know our president and members of Congress were sent to Washington by all Americans, we can trust our government. That is the America the founding fathers established for us.

Otherwise, the resentment and hatred we’ve witnessed the past decade will continue to spread and erode our way of life. While the enemy without will always threaten us, the enemy within is far more ominous.

If you didn’t vote, it’s too late to do so for this election. But consider doing so in future elections, if for nothing else, then to guarantee that the majority is uncontested and unarguable.