It’s been approximately 46 hours since the first of the major networks called the election and made the once unthinkable a reality: President-elect Donald Trump. 46 hours since my family burst into joy and my campus descended into a feverous bout of hand-wringing and sobbing. 46 hours since I watched the future of my nation thrown to a wildcard.

I get it. No one wants to hear anymore about this election. It was a nasty slug to get to this point, and no one wants the nastiness to continue. But the unprecedented election of Trump warrants a great more than a passing Facebook comment, if only for the shocking nature of how it happened.

Virtually no pollsters and pundits had Donald Trump pegged to win the presidency. Just about the best chance that I could track down for the New York businessman was from Nate Silver’s 538.com, clocking him at about a 28.6% chance to win the day before the election.

Yet, even Nate Silver couldn’t have predicted the absolute implosion of Hillary Clinton’s “blue wall”, with Donald Trump winning every competitive Rust Belt state (or virtually: as of this writing he leads in Michigan, though there has been no official call of the Wolverine State just yet). 46 electoral votes that were thought to be reliably Clinton (Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan) have broke Trump’s way and two other states that Obama won in ’08 and ’12, Iowa and Ohio, also went to the insurgent candidate.

Donald Trump was elected President of the United States for a number of reasons, but chief among them was the Democratic Party’s neglect of a large swath of America: the once proud Rust Belt. Coming from Wisconsin I understand why people voted for Donald Trump. I do not condone Donald Trump’s actions on a number of fronts. I did not want the man as my president (I opted to support Gary Johnson instead). But I can empathize with the people who did break his way across the Upper Midwest.

While I have heard any countless number of Muslims, Hispanics, members of the LGBTQ community, and a variety of others speak about how scared they are of Trump as president over the last few hours, I remind them that this clash is not one-sided: the white working-class voters who delivered the Rust Belt to Trump are not some virulent, war-mongering people, but rather just as frightened and just as scared.

Consider this: on Tuesday, as millions were streaming into the polls to vote, General Motors (whom the Bush and subsequently Obama administration helped bailout in 2009) announced they were laying off another 2,000 workers in Michigan and Ohio due to low car sales. From 2003-2007, Michigan lost over 148,000 jobs, and more were soon to be followed by the hardship of the Great Recession. According to World Atlas, four of the top ten cities for violent crime in the United States are in the Rust Belt (Detroit #1, Milwaukee #5, Cleveland #7, and Indianapolis #9). I can speak in my own experience that the homicide rate in the past few years has only increased in both Milwaukee and our larger neighbor to the south, Chicago.

Couple this with a news media and a mainstream Democratic Party that constantly tells whites they need to “check their privilege” and that they’re “racists” and “xenophobes” for suggesting ways to deal with the racial issues in America, and it’s not hard to see why a candidate like Donald Trump appeals to people.

I want to make this clear, here and now. Are there racists and bigots who voted for Donald Trump? Absolutely. Are the majority of people who voted for Donald Trump racists and bigots? I posit no. Many of the people who ultimately turned toward Trump did so because the Democrats they have relied on for so long have done nothing to advance their economic prosperity in the region. Many of the people who voted for Donald Trump did so because they felt that Washington was not listening to their concerns. And now their champion will control Washington.

At least that is the hope. I remain optimistic that with Republican control of Congress and a by-and-large conservative control of the Supreme Court (despite the Kennedy swing vote) Donald Trump will deliver on his conservative promises and not kowtow to every populist whim that Chuck Schumer and the Democrats might waft his way. I remain optimistic that taxes will be cut, that immigration will be reformed, that ISIS will be destroyed, and that jobs will somehow, someway, return to my home on the shores of Lake Michigan.

I do not blame people for the anger and resentment that’s spouted from the end of this election. Their own champion has been vanquished. Let them grieve. And I do share their concerns that Donald Trump’s proposed policies on Muslim immigration and free speech may bring about only more bad blood. But those who are rioting in the streets, protesting, and beating the drum have failed to light on the crux of the issue: they are still not listening.

This is a polarized country and perhaps it makes sense that Donald Trump, the most polarizing public figure in memory, be the one to lead it in this uncertain world. But I fear the rhetoric will not stop, not only from Trump but also from the coalition of liberal groups that will oppose him. My fear is that we will continue to ignore one another and opt instead for shouting down one another and slinging mud. Policy cannot grow in that. Policy cannot thrive in that.

As such, my hope for the next four years becomes the same sentiment that I iterated in the article I published on the eve of the election: that 2016 be the year we learn to listen. To quote Hemingway, “I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening. Most people never listen.”

I do not know if Donald Trump will be successful as president. I do not know if he will truly speak for all Americans as he promised he would in his victory speech. I certainly hope he will. This election was a rebuke of the status quo, of Washington corruption, of an increasingly distant and tribalized Democratic Party, and a massive win for a people who are not about to be duped by a borderline propaganda-like media any longer. For those reasons I am content with the outcome of the election.

But I will not be completely at peace until the fiery words that Trump normalized and the Democrats have continued are replaced with honest and eager debate, devoid of fluff and packed with substance. Some might call me a fool for hoping that America might ever be a place where such dialogue can take place, yet some of the greatest movers and shakers have been deemed fools by those who couldn’t see past the end of their own nose.

Let us not let these be a dark four years, full of vitriol, spite, and hate. Let us make these a great four years, in conjunction with or despite the powers that be. Let us make America great again. And most of all, let us make America listen again.