This election season has been filled by even more alarms and distractions than usual – perhaps the inevitable result of having a gifted demagogue in the White House.

Yet, in the end, all that separates a democracy from authoritarian rule are free and fair elections, and there’s a purpose to voting that transcends present chaos, even if it’s not discernable until long afterward.

What are we voting for in this pandemic year? One exposition came in Franklin’s Roosevelt’s State of the Union address in 1941 – the “Four Freedoms” speech.

It came as the nation prepared for another world war, one that could be glimpsed but was not quite real, thanks in part to the intense isolationism that gripped most Republicans and many Democrats. Increased industrial production had reduced unemployment from 17% to 10% over the previous two years, but the Great Depression was still a palpable presence.

The United States wasn’t ready for war. The unraveling of Europe, which began with the Versailles Treaty and the American failure to ratify it, had already produced dictators – Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin – at the core of European civilization. Many Americans wanted to stay out.

Roosevelt addressed a divided nation torn between its newfound worldwide responsibilities and its dread of entanglement in endless European, and Asian, conflicts. His masterful performance in depicting democracy as the world’s best hope was perhaps even more important than his first inaugural address in 1933, when he had said “the only thing we have to fear is . . . fear itself.”

He began with two freedoms familiar from the nation’s founding, enshrined in the Bill of Rights: “freedom of speech and expression – everywhere in the world” and “freedom of every person to worship God in his own way – everywhere in the world.”

These are America’s two great gifts to the world, stated pointedly by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Through their exercise, we have avoided tyranny and religious persecution, imperfectly but with growing success.

Roosevelt’s third freedom was much on the mind of his listeners: freedom from want. In his second inaugural in 1937, he had spoken of “one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.”

It wasn’t just 25% unemployment or endless breadlines, resulting in poverty and deprivation for millions – but the loss of hope, which can be even more crippling.

Amid war, prosperity was restored, and has continued, with brief interruptions ever since. Today, we have material wealth beyond anything dreamed of in the 1940s, but we haven’t achieved freedom from want.

The economic inequality of this society is greater than it has ever been, and the contrast between billionaires and “essential workers” earning minimum wage has never been more vivid than during this pandemic. The stock market and the GNP are not a reliable measure of a healthy society.

The fourth freedom, “freedom from fear” is even more resonant to our contemporary ears. We have been instructed to fear “the other” for so long that we can no longer remember that “the other” has been with us a long time.

A century ago, discrimination had been visited on immigrants from Ireland, from Italy, from Greece and a host of other places. In Maine, the French Canadian immigrants who toiled in the mills were targeted. Everywhere, blacks were second-class citizens.

Hatred of others, whether in elections or federal policies, cannot be a stable basis for a just and enduring society. Communities, formed across boundaries, are the only answer.

The post-war solidarity following World War II has long since dissipated. We have struggled ever since to define a new national sense of purpose.

In this moment, we must ask again what freedom means. For most of us, it does not mean the right to carry automatic weapons at public protests, as some seem to believe.

It decidedly doesn’t include the “freedom” not to wear a mask in public, at a time when it’s the only effective means of protecting ourselves and each other from a deadly virus.

The years ahead will tell us whether we’ve been able to turn back the forces of want and fear, FDR’s two examples of “freedom from.” The tools to do so definitely include the two “freedom ofs” – speech and religion, in all their manifold forms, from political activism and protest to reasoned discussion, especially with those who may currently disagree with us.

All these aims, on Election Day, are embodied in the form of candidates, and choices on a ballot. After that, the search for new freedoms – freedom from pandemics, and freedom for a livable planet – will begin anew.

Douglas Rooks, a Maine editor, reporter, opinion writer and author for 36 years, has published books about George Mitchell, and the Maine Democratic Party. He welcomes comment at drooks@tds.net