I’m flying back from New York on New Year’s Day. Two years ago, I was prepping for a trip to D.C. to join the Women’s March. How discouraged and angry many of us were that a majority vote for the first and highly qualified woman president fell to the flaws in our mostly excellent democratic system! After two years of suffering endless blows and embarrassments perpetrated by our newly elected president, I’m hopeful again. Did I say this is an opinion column? Yes, it is.

I’ve always valued democracy. The nuns in our Minneapolis grade school taught us the basic principles: one adult,...