Star Wars themes rolled through my head upon waking this morning. Would today be The Empire Strikes Back or The Force Awakens? I am not sure why these themes wandered through my mind, but even so many hours later, these themes seem appropriate.

The good news is that the U.S. House of Representatives will be controlled by the Democrats. The Trump administration will face a level of scrutiny from Congress that it has not yet faced. Obamacare will likely survive. And the voice from women has roared, with 100 or so women serving.

The Empire Strikes Back is a movie where the good guys just keep losing, outsmarted and outgunned. Likewise, Democrats cannot completely seem to get it together. Like the Old English epic Beowulf, the Democrats found that in slaying the monster Grendel meant wrestling Grendel’s mother. The epic is really about tackling something beyond one’s circle of experience. It’s the same lesson everyone learns.

Therein lay the hard lesson – the Republican Party is officially dead, but in its wake cometh Grendel’s mother – Trump. It’s mean. It’s ugly. It’s vicious. There’s a subtleness as well. Eddie S. Glaude Jr., chair of the Center for African-American Studies at Princeton noted how “appalling so many willingly voted for ‘vicious.'”

Like the Grendel, for nearly a decade, a similar political monster has been picking off the best Democrats, munching them like morning biscuits. They couldn’t muster much of a defense and were hopeless at exacting revenge. However, the midterm elections offer a couple Buddhist lessons.

Republican Lesson

  • All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become. If you think greatness, you’ll become greatness. Embrace fear and hatred, you will be hated.

Democrat Lesson

  • Fret not about finding one single leader, for there is no secret ingredient to being a good leader. In time, a leader cometh.
  • Superheroes are not required. Great acts are comprised of small deeds. Look no further than the victorious from last night. The leader may not be a singular ‘him’ or ‘her.’ Maybe our leader is ‘we.’

As the character Poe Dameron (Star Wars: The Last Jedi) hinted, you’ve lit the spark that’ll light the fire.