The election is over, and though the national and presidential outcome is not what we’d hoped for, we find ourselves still hopeful.

Hopeful that a well-situated force of elected officials in Washington will, like last time around, help curb the worst of Donald Trump’s impulses through our various checks and balances, as described in our front-page story this week.

Hopeful that our island healthcare situation will accommodate and heal more islanders — such as through the work by Vashon Pharmacy explored in our other front-page story this week.

Hopeful that we can all learn something from the orcas gracing our front-page this week — who are foraging and socializing with their friends and family, daring to eat and play and race and love even when dealt a terrible hand by human beings, because to abandon joy is to accept defeat.

Make no mistake, this is an uncertain and deeply distressing time for our country and the world, with a president-elect who has pledged to end birthright citizenship, open up more oil drilling, “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” and more.

His verbal attacks on queer and transgender people and his pledge to bend policy to discriminate against them are deeply alarming. So, too, are his stance and previous actions on reproductive freedom.

And as journalists, we dread the attacks on the free press yet to come.

We won’t belabor these points now, sufficing it to say that we find the goals of the incoming administration to be morally repugnant. Our immediate focus, with election season behind us, will return to the island — our community and its challenges, hopes, dreams and accomplishments. Here, we know, residents are engaged, informed and capable of effecting change.

After all, our greatest potential for progress lies at the local level. Pushing broad national environmental reform is hard, but helping clean up Vashon’s streams and rivers is a little easier.

There is no reason we should not try to do both.