In the film The Patriot, Colonel Harry Burwell (Chris Cooper), who is fresh from the Battle of Bunker Hill, urges the South Carolina General Assembly to send troops to support the budding Revolution against Great Britain. Opposed to his call for war is Benjamin Martin, a former comrade in arms during the French and Indian War, now a planter and a widower with seven children.

At one point in their debate, Burwell says, “If your principles dictate independence, then war is the only way. It has come to that.” The two men argue a bit more back and forth before Martin declares that he will abstain from any vote, at which point Burwell asks, “And your principles?”

“I’m a parent,” Martin replies. “I haven’t got the luxury of principles.”

Substitute the word despair for principles in Martin’s answer, and you have one of my core truths sculpted by the last four years. Despite the handwringing of certain online commentators I follow and the hopelessness expressed by some friends about our American future, despair was a luxury I couldn’t afford. To raise a white flag and declare the American Dream at an end would mean consigning my four children, their spouses, and a platoon of grandchildren, from the 11-month-old latest addition to my 20-year-old grandson, to a purgatory of diminished possibilities and possible tyranny.

Like so many others I know, the election of Donald Trump to the presidency brought a feeling of enormous relief, even joy, that I’ve never before experienced post-election. It was as if someone had thrown open a window on a hot, stifling room. You could feel the breezes of change and renewal.

Yet this victory, much as it matters, is not the end of our cultural and political wars. The troubles we face—illegal immigration, inflation, the crushing national debt, the war between Ukraine and Russia, recently exacerbated by the Biden administration, the failures of so many institutions, like education and health care, and more—remain in place. Standing between these problems and their solutions is the deep state, that interlocking network of government agencies intent more on their own survival rather than on what’s best for the American people.

Already we hear from the left that President-elect Trump’s choices for his cabinet and for other positions are inadequate, that his nominees are either ignorant of the agencies they will command or unqualified for the jobs. These criticisms should be translated as “They’re not one of us.” Though Republicans have captured both the House and the Senate, some of them will care more for their power and wealth than for the liberties and welfare of their constituents. We can rest assured that, in spite of the battering delivered by the election results, corporate media will resume its biased reporting of the news.

Consequently, the war on our Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and our freedoms will continue. We who voted for the recent sea change in our government and its policies, as well as all other liberty-loving Americans, must keep our eyes wide open as we make our way past the inauguration and into 2025. For many months, we heard commentators describe the upcoming election as the most important of our lives. The coming year will be equally as crucial, and the battles ahead demand the attention and participation of each one of us.

We can begin by reading books like Katy Faust’s Pro-Child Politics or Brad Wilcox’s Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization. These authors and others remind us that the foundation stone of our culture and society is not the government, but the family. We can take another step by giving our own families, per the example of Benjamin Martin, a central role in our lives. We can shape our homes into sanctuaries of elegance, safety, and love, as Carrie Gress and Noelle Mering demonstrates in Theology of Home: Finding the Eternal in the Everyday.

We can make the affairs of state a part of our lives, not life itself. The videos of the curses, tears, and threats following Kamala Harris’s loss serve as a reminder of the consequences of placing politics on an altar. Had the election gone the other way, the Trumpers I know would have mourned, but none of them would have suffered the mental and spiritual breakdowns of the raging, grief-stricken Harris supporters who had sold their souls to an ideology.

Finally, come what may, we must always live in defiant and joyful hope. In the war ahead between the American people and its overbearing government, some battles will be won, some lost. This line from G. K. Chesterton reminds us of why we must persevere: “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”

As we do our part to restore truth, liberty, and real justice to our country and our institutions, let’s remember that these are but abstractions, that behind them are the names and faces of those we love.