Can our house be saved?

America is in dire straits, mired in problems and seemingly unable to solve any of them.

We have a pandemic that’s killing Americans by the tens of thousands in addition to causing unrest over any effort by our government to try to protect us via mask mandates and shutdowns.

We have racial unrest that’s spawned protests even locally and images of police in riot gear clashing with protesters have become so common that they don’t even faze us anymore.

Then there’s perhaps the ugliest presidential election in modern American history. It’s an election in which the incumbent, Donald Trump, is still claiming he won and trying to garner support for staying in the White House even though the vote totals tell a different story.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, who most media outlets have named as the winner of the presidential race, is preparing to take office while Trump seems like he’s not even contemplating stepping down. A large percentage of Americans agree with Trump and believe the election was rigged against him.

It looks like we can all add our election process as another American institution thrown onto the heap with all the others that many of us no longer trust or have faith in.

If you’re alarmed by where our nation’s headed, you’re completely justified. What’s happening to our country begs for every American’s attention and concern.

But what can we do?

For starters, we must do the seemingly impossible and unite to heal the divisiveness that’s tearing our country apart.

Biden echoed these sentiments in a Thanksgiving eve speech. He told a nation that almost appears on the brink of another civil war that Americans need to stop being at war with each other and unite to defeat threats such as COVID-19.

We hope that Americans of all political and religious persuasions realize this holiday season that we are all in this together. Liberal, conservative — all of us have much in common, including the obvious fact that we’re all Americans.

Our hopes, dreams and daily problems and concerns are much more similar than different.

But somewhere along the line we’ve become so focused on our differences that we as a nation seem poised for a painful divorce.

If we want to save this great nation of ours, we need to change course and soon.

So if your continued mindset is going to be that any American who disagrees with you about COVID-19, guns, abortion, politics, morality or religion is the enemy, we’re doomed.

The biggest threat to our nation right now is not the pandemic, it’s that the house that is America is divided like at no other time since the American Civil War. And that division is obviously and undeniably causing that house to fall.

It’s our choice on what happens next.

We can unite around the similarities we all have or continue to fight over our differences until America is gone.

Because loving your country means loving your fellow Americans regardless of politics, persuasion, race or religion.

■ Guest editorial from Idaho State Journal, Pocatello, Idaho.