Tom Brokaw said that today’s voting marked the end of America’s apathy. He was speaking of course of the record number of voters that turned out. In some states, the number of voters caused glitches in others, voting went smoothly.

But, will the election really make a difference? Will the state of the economy change dramatically? Will our military loved-ones wake up tomorrow to news that they are going home immediately? Will the world’s terrorists suddenly say, “Oh, America has a new President? Let’s leave them alone?”

I don’t think so. Tomorrow morning we are going to wake up to no great change. That will still be true in January, June, and even next December. Regardless of whom lives in the White House we will still feel a thrill of fear when news anchors mention attacks. Our people will still risk death in foreign countries fighting for someone else’s agenda. The economy will still be a mess. There are reasons these things will still be true.

First, the United States of America is too large a nation to base something as important as its leadership on the merits of a single person. Too often, bright, energetic, and capable people are elected to the White House only to find themselves, in hostile territory because they cannot gather the support they need after the fact. Candidates in the future need to have a strong team ready to go to work from day one while they are still campaigning.

Second, the news media has to do a better job of informing the public. We should not be voting for the nicest, most charismatic, or even most experienced candidate. Not if the candidate is inherently weak. Think about Richard Nixon, would the country have voted him into office if they had known his views on the rights and responsibilities of the president? I don’t think so. In the months following Watergate as Mr. Nixon and his co-conspirators sought to actively derail the investigation we learned the man was nothing more than a thug in a good suit. If the press had been less biased and more honest with their readers before the election, we may have avoided one of the most embarrassing episodes of U.S. history.

This same logic applies to the current president. It is amazing to me how many times since he has taken office we have learned of things in his past that showed he was not fit to lead the nation. The press had access to this information yet saved it. I will not even discuss how the press, with their sources of information and knowledge, could have put the brakes on the race to war, but failed.

Third, We The People have failed the Constitution. Our apathy, sense of entitlement, and self-centeredness lead us to accept at face value, the promises made during campaigns. We have stopped demanding more in depth dialogue from the candidates. Our ancestors bestowed a Bill of Rights upon us. They gave us the power to use our voices and our votes to protect the freedom of our country, not just the few people we know and love. We have not done that. We have allowed our government to engage in illegal searches and seizures. We have allowed them to hold foreign citizens in a military prison while denying those civilians the right of due process. We have knowledge of the torture and terror used to force so-called confessions from these people, again a violation of civil rights, and we turn a blind and silent eye.

The state of our nation will not change until We The People, in our capacity as the most important element of our society stand up and demand an accounting of our government’s actions. The election of a single man, regardless of how good he is, is not going to change that. The issues facing us, and our children in the future, are not issues of economy, domestic policy, or foreign policy, but issues of accountability. Until we demand better, we will continue to reel from one crisis to the next. That demand has to begin with our expectations of ourselves. The accountability starts not on Wall Street, or Main Street or Pennsylvania Avenue, but on Elm Street.