Biden and Harris have earned our support to lead the nation

Sunday, Oct. 4, 2020 | 2 a.m.

Editor’s note: The Sun wrote this endorsement prior to President Donald Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis and hospitalization.

On rare occasions, history offers us a clear choice that demands one, and only one, proper answer. This election is such a moment, and the proper answer is Joe Biden for president.

We have lived through the chaotic, traumatic and utterly debased Trump years. We have all the evidence we need from the damage he and his supporters have done to the beautiful idea that is America.

It is time to heal our nation.

America needs Biden in ways that are as broad as protecting our future as a free people, and as personal as a grade-schooler getting enough to eat. They’re as broad as protecting the planet from the effects of global warming, as personal as every American’s ability to obtain affordable health care when we’re sick or injured. They’re as broad as overcoming the pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 of us, as personal as the treatment of any Black American in interactions with police.

We know it’s an election cliché to say that America needs (fill in the blank). But this year, with Biden and running mate Kamala Harris filling that blank, it couldn’t be more true.

A Biden/Harris administration brings an end to four years of sabotaging of our democratic foundations in pursuit of autocracy, of undermining our standing in the global community, of demeaning our allies while embracing despotic leaders, of vandalizing our civility and ethical standards, of trampling our American values of inclusion and equality, of encouraging racism and vigilantism by violent extremists, of rigging our election process with the goal of establishing minority rule, of vilifying immigrants and people of color, of tilting our economy to funnel more money to those at the very top of the income bracket, of using unmarked federal forces to conduct extrajudicial detainments of protesters, of turning back the clock on equal rights for women and minorities, and much more.

With Biden as president, adults will pry the steering wheel from a wild toddler. America would be led by a president with decades of effective leadership in Washington, who knows how to pull the levers of government as opposed to only knowing how to break them. He and Harris would form the nucleus of a team of policy professionals with the experience, education and skills to address complex issues. The revolving door of White House incompetents would stop.

Biden comes armed with a detailed array of strategies for leading Americans — all Americans — into a new era. He stood out among the Democratic candidates in large part because he developed a particularly impressive set of policies covering a huge array of issues critical to Americans — health care, climate, energy, infrastructure, gun violence, foreign policy, and more. Look on his website, and you’ll find detailed policies covering nearly 50 topics.

The America ushered in by these policies will be healthier, more prosperous, safer, greener, more just, more inclusive. The middle class will have a chance again and so will the environment. The bleak resurgent racism of the Trump years will be pushed back as America continues to work toward real equality. And American decency will flourish once more.

There is a narrative about true American greatness and hope found in these policies.

That’s leadership from someone who knows how government works. By contrast, President Donald Trump’s campaign site offers practically nothing of a vision for a second term. Instead Trump presents a list of “promises kept.” Right — like building the wall and making Mexico pay for it? Promises like that? Let’s see, only about 300 miles of the 1,200-mile wall have been constructed, and much of that was replacement. And we’re still waiting for that check from Mexico.

Trump has never had an actual policy that wasn’t handed to him by Mitch McConnell or Fox News.

While Trump has no discernible policy other than self-interest, he does have goals: He’s a stone-cold racist, a self-serving grifter and an aspiring dictator. We spent all of the 20th century fighting people like Trump at home and abroad, and now in this young century, by a confluence of cruel forces, America has endured his occupancy in the White House.

There would be an end to the exodus of government experts in science, health and other fields who have left the government in disgust or after being hounded out. There would also be an end to the attack on inspectors general, the watchdogs who help hold the presidency accountable.

America would have a president who listens to public health experts on the pandemic, as opposed to disdaining them and refusing to follow their advice by even doing something so simple as routinely wearing a mask in public.

Biden would offer essential leadership qualities that have been absent under the Trump administration — humility, empathy and honesty. He’s able to admit he’s wrong, and that he’s not the smartest person in every room on every topic. He’s opened himself to public scrutiny through his career in office and learned to face criticism.

He can admit he’s imperfect.

And let’s be clear, he is imperfect. Biden has notoriously been his own worst enemy due to lapses in judgment, including when he lost his temper at a couple of everyday Americans who challenged him during Q&A sessions on the campaign trail.

Yet Biden, unlike Trump, shows the character traits the nation desperately needs in our next leader.

Does anyone really believe Trump cares about a child who goes to school hungry? A woman who requires a health clinic for a pelvic exam? A Dreamer facing deportation? A Black man under the knee of the police? A Puerto Rican family recovering from a hurricane? A Mexican child? A peaceful protester for social justice? Young people growing up with an epidemic of gun violence? Anyone who loathes today’s tribalism?

Of course Trump doesn’t care. He has a narrow list of things he cares about: himself, primarily, then his family, golf, adulation and the odd cheeseburger or porn star. Oh, and Vladimir Putin.

With Biden in the Oval Office, the reality show presidency of the past four years will end.

No more wanton perversion of our justice system. No encouragement of extremists like militias, the Proud Boys and Boogaloo Bois to commit violence against their fellow Americans. No insider reports about the president calling U.S. soldiers “losers” and “suckers.” No teargassing of peaceful protesters in order to conduct a photo op with an upside-down Bible.

A Biden presidency cuts the noise, replacing it with calm-headed, expert-guided leadership and a detailed policy blueprint for a better tomorrow.

Biden’s choice of running mate, Kamala Harris, is every bit as impressive as his other choices. Poised and brilliant by any measure, Harris is exceptionally well-equipped to help Biden guide the nation during the long and complicated process of repairing the damage of the Trump years. As a city prosecutor, state attorney general and U.S. senator, Harris understands the impact of government on people’s lives at all levels. In the event something horrible happens, Harris would be immediately ready to occupy the Oval Office. Adding to her spectacular qualifications there is this: It is high time for America to have a woman of color occupying the highest offices in the land.

Rarely has the country more desperately needed this type of even-handed leadership, with millions out of work due to the pandemic and far too many families either having faced the loss of loved ones or illness from the coronavirus themselves. Meanwhile, Trump has made it clear he’ll continue to fuel tensions between Black Lives Matter protesters and law enforcement, a cynical strategy to protect his own interests by claiming the clashes represent the future of the nation under Biden and Democratic leadership.

That’s not the case at all. Biden, unlike Trump, has clearly denounced violence in the protests on all sides, and has done nothing to encourage violence on anyone’s part.

This is what a president should do.

Simply put, America needs a president and vice president who can lead all of us and know how to do that. We need them on a global level, on a national level and at a kitchen-table level.

This year, it’s no cliché. America needs Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.