I will vote for Joe Biden. I will vote for him with enthusiasm. The alternative is almost too horrible to contemplate.

Donald Trump is a wannabe fascist. Under Mitch McConnell’s direction (or control), Trump is filling the federal judiciary with rightwing extremists and incompetents. Trump is vicious. He has not an ounce of empathy. He is incompetent, and he has surrounded himself with incompetent lackeys, who are determined to dismantle the federal government and break every international institution created since 1945 to assure mutual cooperation. Given another four years, he will utterly destroy whatever is left of our government, ideals, our hopes for a better future, our belief in progress.

Joe Biden didn’t win the nomination because the Democratic establishment backed him. In fact, Biden was written off by the Democratic establishment after his mediocre performance in the early primary states. His campaign was running low on money. He did not have campaign offices in most states. His campaign hit the skids.

But then came South Carolina, where African American voters united behind him and made him the leader of the pack. Most Democrats want to rally around a candidate, and he was the one. His political revival was nothing short of amazing. His campaign was near dead, and now he is the presumptive party nominee.

Bernie Sanders has powerful, passionate, and loyal supporters, and a remarkable fund-raising machine. But after Biden won South Carolina, other candidates dropped out and endorsed Biden, not Sanders.

Let’s face it. Most Democratic voters don’t want a revolution. They want to beat Trump, and they like Biden’s chances. Even with an almost invisible campaign, he’s ahead of Trump in battleground states and national polls.
They like Biden’s decency. He’s kind, not mean like Trump. He’s civil, not vicious like Trump. He has the capacity for empathy, unlike Trump, who is incapable of giving comfort or solace to anyone. Biden has known personal grief and suffering. He is human. He is mainstream and establishment, which Sanders’ followers criticize, but apparently most Democrats find comforting.

Both Trump and Biden are in their 70s. Neither has put forward an electrifying vision for change. We know what Trump stands for: racism, xenophobia, inciting hatred, blaming others for his failures, never taking responsibility, constant boasting, persistent lying, unbridled narcissism.

After more than three chaotic, jarring, frightening, crisis-ridden, and mean-spirited years of Trump, most Democratic voters seem to be looking for stability, a steady hand at the tiller, and competence. That’s what they see in Biden.

Biden offers a return to “normalcy.” Not charisma, or grand promises, or change, but calm. The fact that the country is currently gripped by a public health crisis and a collapsing stock market makes the appeal of calm even stronger to a weary, frightened, and nervous nation.

Let us hope that Biden, if elected, does not restore the failed education policies of Arne Duncan or install an Education Secretary who clings to the test-and-punish regime. Let’s hope that he recognizes the failure of Race to the Top and avoids anyone who was part of it.

Evidently Trump is so afraid of facing Biden that he was willing to break the law and risk impeachment to hurt Biden’s chances. Now we will have a nasty campaign in which Trump says over and over “Hunter Biden, corrupt.” “Sleepy Joe.” Trump has a mean machine ready to attack and slime Biden, as he would have slimed anyone else who opposed him.

People who live in glass houses…

When the Trump regime is eventually analyzed by historians, I am willing to bet that they document public corruption and ethical breaches that make Teapot Dome look like a tea party. The Trump family has profited, and Trump himself has made money, in defiance of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.

The Republican Party is now raising hundreds of millions to keep Trump in office. Michael Bloomberg promised during the campaign that he was prepared to spend $1 billion to defeat Trump, but so far there is no sign of that Bloomberg billion. Biden is far behind Trump in fundraising. If the primary is any indication, the American people know what is at stake. At last report, the GOP had a huge financial advantage over Biden.

Mr. Trump and his shared committees with the R.N.C. raised $63 million in March and entered April with a combined $244 million in cash on hand. Mr. Biden and the D.N.C. had $57.2 million in the bank, after accounting for unpaid debts.

If money alone were enough to win campaigns, Mike Bloomberg would be the Democratic nominee; he spent $1 billion and won only American Samoa.

Biden now has the endorsement of all his Democratic rivals.

But what about Tara Reade? I don’t believe her. She had many opportunities to make her charges public over the past 27 years, but she waited until March 2020, after Biden was well advanced on his path to the nomination, to go public. She could have spoken out in 2008, when Biden was selected to run with Obama. She didn’t. She could have spoken out in 2017, when the #MeToo movement emerged in response to multiple revelations about sexual predator Harvey Weinstein; at that time, many women announced that they too had suffered sexual abuse. She didn’t. She could have spoken out when Biden announced that he was running for president in 2020. She was silent. She claims he sexually assaulted her in the basement of the Russell Senate Office Building. The basement is where senators and their staff go to catch a trolley to the Capitol. It is a busy public space with tight security. There are no hidden niches where a prominent senator could assault a young intern without being observed. Men who force themselves on women tend to be repeat offenders (think Weinstein, Trump, Jeffrey Epstein), yet no other woman has accused Biden of heinous behavior. I won’t even go into her repeated tweets praising Putin in fulsome language. PBS interviewed 74 Biden staffers and found no one who supported Reade’s allegations. Why did she alone have this dreadful experience? I don’t believe her. If this is the issue that determines your vote, why would you support a man who has been credibly accused of sexual assault by multiple women and has publicly declared his view of women as sexual prey?

Biden’s job for now is to reach voters and energize the base as well as the independents who are sick of Trump’s narcissism and lies. At present, Biden is locked down like almost everyone else in the country. No rallies, no pressing the flesh, no person-to-person events. Maybe he can run a so-called “front porch” campaign, sitting quietly at home while Trump knocks himself out with idiotic and unhinged remarks.

He said he will pick a woman as his vice-presidential nominee. It should be someone with the experience and knowledge to be ready to act as president on short notice. I personally favor Elizabeth Warren. But there are other excellent candidates, including Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris. Biden knows the gravity of choosing the right running mate.

For all of us, for the nation, for the world, the choice in November is crucial. It is Biden or Trump. Period.

I will do whatever I can to help elect Joe Biden.