This week's American election will have lasting consequences for the United States and the whole world, including Ireland – North and South.

America is a sad and divided continent. The closeness of the election makes reconciling society an impossible task.

From this distance, I fully admit that I do not understand the millions who voted for Trump.

I have tried and failed to rationalise the irrational.

However, Trump supporters know their man; he speaks their language. They cannot be ignored.

The same is true for the Democrats. For America to work, some way has to be found to end this horrible dialogue of the deaf.

It is time to drop the blame game and work for a better future.

I have rarely witnessed such a vicious, divided contest as this year's American Presidential election.

It is disheartening that the Republican party had to accept Trump as their candidate. His behaviour and attitude have been consistently divisive.

Any other candidate in any other party in any other election would have been forced to withdraw from the contest if they behaved as pathetically as Donald Trump did.

But his supporters backed him to the bitter end. He owns the once-proud Republican party.

Joe Biden’s dithering was pathetic. At one point, America had two candidates, one of whom should have been in prison, and the other in a residential home.

The Christian churches are paying the price for undue interference in the American political system.

In recent times, their leaders have primarily supported the Republican candidate due mainly to their anti-abortion stance.

However, after watching Trump bragging about using his power to assault women, Professor Stephen Schneck of the Catholic University of America was scathing about Donald Trump’s attitude.

“In any regular Presidential Election season, the fact that both political parties fall short of the basic expectations of Christian beliefs has been a profound difficulty for Christian Voters.

“However, with Donald Trump, there is no difficulty. Torture? Using nuclear weapons? Religious Liberty? Care for the earth? The dignity of the human person?

“His whole campaign comes down to mocking and repressing other human beings – immigrants, Muslims, the disabled and on and on. Can anyone imagine such a man cares a twig about the unborn?”

Church leaders would have been wise to listen to Pope Francis, who told the American bishops, conscious of the upcoming elections, that “harsh and divisive language does not befit the tongue of a Pastor; it has no place in its heart”.

An almost breathtaking level of rage, scorn, fear, doom, and prophecies of utter misery has gathered around both Trump and Kamala Harris.

How can a great country like the United States, with so many influential achievers, settle on two candidates, neither of whom can be trusted to lead their party, never mind the civilised world?

There are legitimate policy disagreements and electoral fears, and then there is the catastrophising, apocalyptic nature of partisan disagreements and fears.

Even if that catastrophising is legitimate – in regards to Trump, for instance – and enemies are avenged, millions are deported, democracy is threatened, tyrants are appeased, and the military is turned toward the USA’s own citizens, what can we do about it now?

We all have some reflection to do after this election. I admit that I am apprehensive about the future of the world.

A divided America will be taken advantage of. Tyrants worldwide – beginning with Russia – will grab the opportunity to expand their evil influence.

Yet I know I have to calm down. I need to accept I have no influence. It is pointless for me to worry about something I cannot change.

During the Montgomery bus boycott in 1954, Martin Luther King Jr. received dozens of threatening phone calls, including one at midnight, which almost drove him over the edge.

“N—, we’re tired of your mess,” the voice on the phone said. “If you’re not out of town in three days, we’re going to blow your brains out and blow up your house.”

King said that in that moment, possibly the most terrifying of his life, he had to “call on that Power that can make a way out of no way”.

He said it was a moment when religion “had to become real to me. I had to know God for myself.”

King said he heard “the voice of Jesus saying he would never leave me alone”.

So even if Donald Trump were to be elected and bring about “the end of democracy”, would not the Lord still be in his Heaven?

Does God (or a Higher Power, if you prefer) abandon us if democracy abandons us?

Even if Kamala Harris would continue to pull down the legal defence of the unborn, can anything pull down the power of God, who brings good out of anything that happens, anywhere, at any time, and has done so over and over again?

As Gloria Purvis puts it, “No matter who’s in the White House, the governor’s house, the mayor’s house, Jesus is always on the throne.”

Stop worrying, then.

This is not to say that our anger is a failure of trust in God. The prophets' anger at injustice is legitimate.

But there is also a more profound, toxic disturbance that will destroy us if we allow it to. This American election has been such a poisonous experience.

If we give someone or something undue power over us, it is our own doing. One candidate will be elected, and one will not, and the only path to any human sanity is to accept the outcome and move forward.

When Trump or Harris wins, we must let go of what we cannot control and deal with things as they are. The power and relief of letting go are beyond measure.

We have to be realistic about it. We may worry and become depressed, but it will not affect either candidate.

As America magazine put it, the candidate whose followers say, “Deport them all”, is not going to deport me.

The candidate whose Administration has funded Israel’s flattening of Palestine is not out to crush me.

This is a time to reflect, pray, and work for peace and reconciliation.

More practically, it is a time to become active in our own country to save politics from the mess that is the United States of America today.