“Only two weeks to go, and then it’s over.”

“Only a week to go, and then it’s over.”

“Only a few days to go, and then it’s over.”

That’s what I keep hearing from a lot of well-intentioned people as we approach Tuesday, Nov. 5.

I hate to be a buzz killer, but if we’ve learned nothing from American politics in recent years, it is that it’s never over. I appreciate the wishful thinking of the overly optimistic folks, but what makes them think that we’re all going to wake up on Wednesday, Nov. 6, with smiles on our faces, a bounce in our steps and bipartisan blessings for all Americans from sea to shining sea?

If you believe all that, I’ve got a (Donald) Trump University scholarship and a Kamala Harris tax cut for you.

As we’ve seen before, we might not even have a winner in the presidential election Tuesday night. And even if one is declared, will the losing candidate concede if the race turns out to be as close as projections indicate?

Unlikely, especially if that loser turns out to be Trump. When he lost to Joe Biden four years ago, he didn’t concede until after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Hillary Clinton didn’t need that much time to accept reality after her 2016 loss to Trump, but her concession still didn’t come until the next morning.

Frankly, the timing of a potential Harris concession is the least of our concerns if Trump wins another term. How will the other half of the country — the folks who despise Trump — react to a repeat of 2016? And you can bet the Trump-loving half of America will be unhappy if their guy loses.

No, the end of the current election cycle is unlikely to actually happen after all the votes are counted Tuesday night. Or Wednesday night or Thursday night, if it takes that long to get a count done.

It seems as if the days when we could all take a deep breath after Election Day and get on with our lives are gone — maybe for good. Some of that has to do with the rhetoric from both sides when it comes to who might occupy the White House in 2025.

The Democrats insist Trump will be a dictator and never leave office. They warn he will kill Obamacare and institute a nationwide abortion ban. They say he will allow Vladimir Putin and his Russian troops to finish taking Ukraine and any other part of Europe he wants.

A reader emailed me last week to warn that my column will likely go away with a Donald Trump-JD Vance administration. I don’t think she’s a fan based on our exchange, so I’m not sure that she’d be upset if my musings in this space came to an abrupt …

Just kidding. Still here.

The Republicans are no better with their argument that a Harris victory would be the end of America as we know it because she’s a Marxist, communist or socialist — or all three, depending on who you happen to be listening to at a given time.

A Kamala Harris-Tim Walz administration would mean open borders, more fentanyl, Venezuelan gangs taking over our homes and our kids being thrown into shipping containers headed for eastern Europe or Asia as sex slaves. And we haven’t even gotten to the Haitians eating the cats and eating the dogs.

I don’t mean to minimize legitimate concerns about the governance and the policies of either potential administration. Trump has given us plenty to consider. We have his entire first term to look at and the things he has said and done since, including what we’ve seen as we approach Election Day. Harris is largely unknown, despite being a U.S. senator and then serving as President Joe Biden’s vice president since 2021. She also hasn’t seemed all that willing to talk about her potential plans and policies in much detail.

“I grew up in a middle-class family …” isn’t much of a policy statement.

Harris also became the Democrats’ presidential candidate in a most undemocratic way after Biden apparently gave in to party pressure and stepped aside in the wake of his disastrous debate performance.

But enough negativity. Let’s talk about what we hope will happen no matter who wins.

On Page C5 of this newspaper, you will read about two politicians who joined forces to talk about the political polarization plaguing the country.

Outgoing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia independent, and former U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican from Ohio who was succeeded by Vance in 2023, spoke Monday during a panel discussion at the University of Cincinnati.

They talked about how important it is to get the work of the American people done in a bipartisan manner. Part of the discussion was about how to combat extremism on both sides. Essentially, fringe elements among conservatives and liberals are getting all the attention and limiting the effectiveness of centrists or moderates in both parties.

A former colleague — still a friend — once referred to himself as a radical centrist. That’s a political stance I can get behind, because there are some things in both the Democratic and Republican platforms that make sense.

The hope is that once this election cycle reaches a conclusion, we can turn back the clock a bit to a time when “bipartisan” wasn’t a dirty word. But that is going to take some concessions on both sides and some determination to stand up to those fringe elements.

There are plenty of people in Washington — and perhaps in your own neighborhood — who either won’t be willing to try or are convinced that it won’t ever happen, even if they do give it a shot.

But we can hope, right?

Ed Puskas is editor of the Tribune Chronicle and The Vindicator. Write him at epuskas@tribtoday.com.