It's been a big week for the word "bubble." There's the liberal one, in which Democratic voters supposedly got so comfortable that we couldn't hear the jackboots of Trump Nation storm troopers marching to the gates of our right-on utopia.

Then there's the conservative one, where the large minority of Americans who elected Trump are apparently content to insulate and isolate themselves into the delusion that this country belongs exclusively to ignorant white motherfuckers exactly like them.

But despite being totally real, these bubbles are really just sub-bubbles of the much larger spheres that surround urban and nonurban America. This is a subject we've covered before, at LENGTH (see "The Urban Archipelago," November 2004). But clearly we can use a reminder—and a revision—every decade or so. Let's review:

The two geographically separate areas—cities, not cities—have come once again to represent a fundamental divide in the American consciousness, both sides of which continue to argue over which is more bubbly and which is to blame for the rise of Trump. We say it's their myopic selfishness. They say it's our treasonous snobbery. As the reality that Trump really happened continues to take hold, calls for us to understand where his supporters are coming from continue to proliferate. Don't fall for it. Patrick Thornton of Roll Call perfectly spelled out why calls for Trumpathy have it all wrong:

All of this talk about coastal elites needing to understand more of America has it backward. My home county in Ohio is 97 percent white. It, like a lot of other very unrepresentative counties, went heavily for Donald Trump.

My high school had about 950 students. Two were Asian. One was Hispanic. Zero were Muslim. All the teachers were white. My high school had more convicted sexual predator teachers than minority teachers. That's a rural American story.

In many of these areas, the only Muslims you see are in movies like American Sniper. (I knew zero Muslims before going to college in another state.) You never see gay couples or even interracial ones. Much of rural and exurban American is a time capsule to America's past. And on Tuesday, November 8, 2016, they dug it up.

The reinstatement of the Republican Party's control of the White House and Congress is an unmistakable referendum on urban values (pluralism, tolerance, density, collective provision, pro-other, etc.). It's also a re-entrenchment of the suburban and exurban principles we rightly associate with the Bush years (isolationism; hostility to dark skin, women, immigrants, and sexual minorities; authoritarianism masquerading as patriotism).

The divide is helpfully laid out by Trump's own rhetoric: They are the real America and only they—and only their leader—can make America great "again."

Cities aren't perfect. Seattle has egregious problems—inadequate public transit, rental costs, homelessness, income inequality, de facto cultural segregation, etc. But those problems have now been given a stark reprioritization. As grim as the election results are, there's nothing like knowing with 100 percent certainty that you're on the right side of a culture war. It should inspire our sustained action and reignite our sense of gratitude for the astonishing bounty of human and cultural experience right outside our doors, down our blocks, a few stops down our (slowly) growing light rail line.

This will be a long battle. We are going to need to keep other cosmopolitan values alive as well—both to recharge our batteries and to remember the things that make life a bit sweeter. We need to congregate, converse, conspire, argue, embrace, play shows, see shows, drink up, and eat out (in every sense). We need to revel, not cower. In one way, fuck those people, sure. But in another way, invite them to see our example. Let the large minority solely concerned with taking care of itself see us taking care of each other.

Here's Thornton again:

We, as a culture, have to stop infantilizing and deifying rural and white working-class Americans. Their experience is not more of a real American experience than anyone else's, but when we say that it is, we give people a pass from seeing and understanding more of their country. More Americans need to see more of the United States. They need to shake hands with a Muslim, or talk soccer with a middle-aged lesbian, or attend a lecture by a female business executive.

We must start asking all Americans to be their better selves. We must all understand that America is a melting pot and that none of us has a more authentic American experience.

So much for the larger question of building bridges to Trump's America. Motherfucker, the bridges are built! (Thank you, federal government!) They know where to find us. And guess what: They're more than welcome. That's the nature of cities: Everyone is, or should be.

Our first responsibility is to fight to make our urban areas more inclusive, not less. Newcomers of all backgrounds, including Trump Nationals will be coming when the jobs the president-elect has promised to create fail to materialize. When his imaginary wall resembles an old Pontiac up on blocks on the front lawn that is the US-Mexico border, cities will continue to be where the work is.

In the meantime, the real work starts with us.

Read the full feature The Resistance: How to Defeat Donald Trump's Plot Against America