On the eve of the recent election, the Wall Street Journal suggested that this one wasn’t really any more vitriolic than past elections and that the nation wasn’t really as divided as it seemed.

“It is America’s fortune that its parties are forced, if not by conviction then by necessity, to tilt the country their way first by reaching centerward, where the bulk of the electorate sits,” it said. “As a result, whatever our private feelings about tonight’s result, we’ll be able to live with whoever is elected. Criticism resumes tomorrow.” The editorial was concise, moderate, sane — a credit to the conservative Journal.

By comparison, the New Yorker published a bitter pre-election screed that went on for five full pages, blaming one side almost exclusively for “infuriating and scurrilous calumnies” and characterizing Bush as smug, reckless, radical, a liar and an incompetent demagogue. It read like a curse uttered by a witch doctor to dispel an evil spirit. Coming from an eminent magazine, it was a disturbing performance, a reminder that violent passion can turn even cosmopolitan intellectuals into werewolves.

After the election, spokespeople for the losing side consoled themselves with the theory that ignorant, evangelical Christians had been hoodwinked into voting for Bush by the nefarious Karl Rove. (Walter Cronkite suggested that Rove was behind the pre-election bin Laden tape.) Ironically, some pundits employed the kind of apocalyptic, extremist rhetoric they routinely associate with religious zealots.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd sought refuge in nostalgia, recalling the golden age of JFK, when the country had promise and was moving toward “a thrilling world of possibilities and modernity.” Bush, she wrote, was taking us “backward, stifling possibilities, stirring intolerance.” We’re plunging into another dark age, warned Dowd. “I’m getting more the feel of a vengeful mob — revved up by rectitude — running around with torches and hatchets after heathens and pagans and infidels,” she wrote.

After Bush won, columnist Leonard Pitts wrote, “Maybe this is where America ends.” Nicholas von Hoffman in the New York Observer raised the specter of “faith based mobs…breaking into scientific laboratories and smashing the test tubes.” Apocalyptic hysteria was in the air. Reason and common sense had flown the coop.

A few days after the election, I joined a group of friends for opening day of pheasant hunting in Washington, Kan., in the heart of Red State country. Strange as it may seem, I didn’t see anyone wielding a hatchet or carrying a torch in Washington that weekend. To my knowledge, no witches were burned at the stake. No liberals were pilloried in the public square. I didn’t hear anyone gloating over the re-election of Bush. The subject of politics didn’t come up once — except for the moment when one of our liberal companions was accused of walking with a “Bush swagger” after making an exceptional shot. (“I’m going to start crawling,” was his reply.)

If these are the Dark Ages, they looked fairly bright in rural Kansas. Record crops had been brought in from the fields. Plentiful summer rains had restored a vital beauty to the countryside, after several years of drought. And the pheasants were back in numbers. The conversation at the table of the farmer whose land we hunt turned around crops and combines and the local school’s volleyball team.

True, our hostess said grace, offering thanks for nourishment, health and one more reunion of friends. But her words inspired a Kentucky jester among our company to deliver a fire and brimstone sermon. Satan must have possessed our hostess to tempt us with so much delectable food, he said. I’m compelled to report that he wasn’t stoned to death for his irreverence.

Our 76-year-old host, who still gets up before sunrise to work seven days a week, announced that he’d just bought another farm. Apparently, he doesn’t believe the future is bleak. He grew up in a one-room farmhouse and has become an astute and successful farmer. I wished that Thomas Frank — author of “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” — had been at our table. It would have been interesting to hear him lecturing our host about his economic self-interest.

It was a warm gathering. We’ve been observing this ritual together for more than 20 years. Some of us have reached the age when the finish line appears in sight. Time is the most precious thing we can possess.

The beginning of wisdom is the recognition that Us and Them are essentially members of the same species. You wouldn’t be able to guess anyone’s political leanings from examining his digestive tract. Most of us are impervious to facts and arguments that challenge our cherished convictions. Thinking in absolutes, right or left, causes many of our problems. But over time, we learn to live with changes that drive the country — forward, we hope.

Soon enough, the winners will take their turn as losers and the other side will have its chance to muck things up. Let humor and patience rather than malice be their guide. We have many shortcomings, but Americans are also the best hope of the world. The Dark Ages will soon be remembered as the good old days.

— George Gurley, who lives in rural Baldwin, writes a regular column for the Journal-World.