Endorsement: Save our democracy. Vote for Joe Biden – South Florida Sun Sentinel

A republic, Madam, if you can keep it — Benjamin Franklin, Philadelphia, 1787, when asked what the Constitutional Convention had proposed

The question that Franklin answered 233 years ago overshadows every other issue in the presidential election. It is why we recommend, with enthusiasm and a sense of urgency, that voters elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to be the president and vice president of the United States. In so doing, the American people will answer whether our representative democracy, under the rule of law, is still worth keeping.

That is the overarching question, which makes this the most fateful campaign since the survival of the nation was at stake in the Civil War.

In ordinary times, citizens would be debating whether presidential policies should be conservative, moderate or liberal, whether taxes should be raised or cut and programs created, ended or changed. Reasonable people can disagree respectfully over such choices.

But now, as former President Barack Obama declared last week, the main question is whether the presidency will be “the custodian of this democracy” and “defend the freedoms and ideals that so many Americans marched for and went to jail for, fought for and died for.”

Biden and Harris have what it takes to do that. They have the essential integrity, ability, experience and proven dedication to uphold the Constitution, serve the people, remedy our present crises, and regain respect for the government at home and abroad. The Democratic Party did itself proud in nominating them.

They can be trusted to work intelligently and fairly on the nation’s long agenda of unmet needs, including control of the coronavirus, confronting climate change, restoring voting rights, and other priorities that we will discuss below.

Biden’s character has never been in question throughout 46 years of public service as a senator and as vice president.

Hear this from a Republican, former Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, who wrote last week that he will vote for the Democratic ticket even though he expects to disagree over policies:

“Biden is fundamentally a decent and honorable man who respects the American tradition, supports the rule of law, embraces America’s friends and allies, and will restore some semblance of normalcy to the functioning of government. That’s all I want — and not too much to ask of a President. Biden will perform these duties respectfully and with dignity.”

That cannot be said of President Donald Trump.

Regrettably, he has proved himself unfit, untrustworthy and unwilling to uphold the ideals embedded in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, or to take seriously his responsibility for the health and welfare of the American people and the lives of our armed service members overseas.

Consider the warning written by Retired Adm. William H. McRaven, who commanded the Navy’s special forces, in a Washington Post op-ed:

“Today, as we struggle with social upheaval, soaring debt, record unemployment, a runaway pandemic, and rising threats from China and Russia, President Trump is actively working to undermine every major institution in this country. He has planted the seeds of doubt in the minds of many Americans that our institutions aren’t functioning properly. And, if the president doesn’t trust the intelligence community, law enforcement, the press, the military, the Supreme Court, the medical professionals, election officials and the postal workers, then why should we? And if Americans stop believing in the system of institutions, then what is left but chaos and who can bring order out of chaos: only Trump. It is the theme of every autocrat who ever seized power or tried to hold onto it.”

The president’s fatal flaw, to the nation’s peril, is his narcissism. For the national interest, he can’t see beyond the nearest mirror.

From the outset of the coronavirus tragedy, when he began promising — as he still does — that it would just “go away,” he has treated it as an inconvenience to his re-election. He imagined himself wiser than Dr. Anthony Fauci and other scientists.

It has been the most vast and tragic leadership failure in our history. Now, the nation is paying an intolerable price, with more than 170,000 lives and perhaps 50 million jobs lost so far, for his ignorance, incompetence and ego.

Everything is about him. That was glaring again just the other day when he spoke favorably of QAnon, the viral internet conspiracy theory that insanely imagines a cult of pedophiles and cannibals linked to the Democratic Party. The FBI rightly considers such fantasies to be domestic terrorism; it has inspired actual crimes.

“I’ve heard that these are people that love our country,” Trump said. “So I don’t know really anything about it other than that they do supposedly like me.” (Emphasis supplied)

“Why in the world would the President not kick Qanon supporters’ butts? Nut jobs, rascists (sic) haters have no place in either Party,” Jeb Bush, Florida’s former governor, responded on Twitter.

We hope that message is heard by all independents and responsible Republicans, whose votes could determine the outcome of this election. They deserve better than Trump.

A genuine conservative like Bush would have appointed conservative judges, signed tax cuts into law and repealed many — though hardly all — of the environmental regulations that Trump has been discarding wholesale.

But he would have done so while upholding the Constitution, the rule of law and the dignity of the presidency.

Trump is no conservative. He is an illiberal, demagogic populist who appeals to racism and misogyny for a critical mass of votes and is inflaming the divisions in an already polarized nation. Whatever benefits some people see in his economic policies, they are not worth that price.

The president should set an example of personal decency. Trump is vulgar, crass, coarse and vicious toward anyone, even in his own party, who disagrees with him. He cannot admit a mistake for fear that it would make him look weak. When a reporter asked him recently whether he regrets lying to the American people, he couldn’t come up with an answer.

He is shrewd, calculated and cunning, but those traits do not substitute for intelligence, thoughtfulness and curiosity.

He is not without constructive achievements, although they are few. They include the Israeli-United Arab Emirates peace accord, the new North American trade agreement, and the initiative to import less-expensive prescription drugs from Canada.

But his overall record is of broken promises — such as the border wall that Mexico would pay for and the release of his income tax returns. He has uttered more than 20,000 outright lies or fabrications, damaged relations with Canada and other allies who have helped preserve world peace, decimated civilian agencies, continued to assault and undermine the Affordable Care Act without any plan to replace it, ignored and even aggravated the climate change crisis, snatched immigrant children from their families to be put into cages, prostituted the Departments of Justice and State, fired whistleblowers and inspectors general, wrecked the Environmental Protection Agency, coarsened the domestic political dialogue, kowtowed to the gun lobby, failed to repair our crumbling infrastructure, and deployed troops and tear gas against peaceful protestors.

He has committed gross abuses of power in the Ukraine scandal and in attempting to impede Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russia’s efforts to elect him — efforts with which top campaign aides cooperated, according to the scathing bipartisan report of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The president knew and discussed Democratic e-mails Russia had stolen. The report documents cooperation between his first campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and a Russian intelligence officer.

Trump still prefers the sly denials of an enemy, Vladimir Putin, to the considered consensus of our intelligence community. He didn’t bother to ask Putin whether it is true that Russia offered bounties on the lives of American service members in Afghanistan.

No president has ever even hinted at disrespecting the outcome of an election he might lose, but this one has pointedly refused to rule that out. In openly undermining the Postal Service, he is setting up mail voting as the pretext for a coup. He has even spoken aloud about seeking an unconstitutional third term.

The nation cannot afford four more years of him.

It needs the Biden-Harris ticket to make things right.

Many of our national problems predate Trump and both parties have been responsible for glossing over some and making others worse. It would be as unrealistic to expect the Biden administration to solve them all as to trust Trump to fix any. But we can expect honest, competent efforts from Biden and Harris.

First things first: The virus needs to be confronted and controlled on the basis of science, rather than instinct. The nation must be better prepared for the next inevitable pandemic. That means rebuilding the Centers for Disease Control and the state departments of public health

That will go a long way to restoring the health of the economy.

Income inequality has grown to be the most glaring among 67 nations studied by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Growing numbers of Americans no longer expect, as their parents did, that their children will have a better life. That sense of alienation unquestionably contributed to Trump’s election, but he has done little for those who felt that way.

The death of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer has awakened millions of Americans to the reality of racism in the United States. Biden and Harris are the right people to confront that.

The pandemic has exposed unacceptable weaknesses in the health care system that was supposed to be the world’s best. For what it costs — twice what other advanced nations pay — it ought to be the world’s best. But by outcomes, it’s not. Black, Hispanic and Native Americans have suffered and died disproportionately of COVID-19, and not, as some assume, on account of lifestyle. Housing segregation, unequal treatment in health care facilities, and a preponderance of low-paying jobs without health insurance are mainly at fault. Endemic racism has contributed to all of that.

The premise that health insurance should depend on where one works is no longer valid. At least 10 million people lost theirs, at the worst possible time, when the pandemic shuttered offices, schools and factories. Medicare can and should be expanded to be available to anyone who needs it.

The Medicare and Social Security trust funds are drawing down their reserves and need to be strengthened for long-term sustainability. This is as important to younger workers, if not more so, because there are some right-wing politicians who would leave them to fend for themselves.

Voting rights have been under attack ever since the Supreme Court eviscerated the noble law that the late Rep. John Lewis had nearly given his life for. There’s no doubting Joe Biden’s commitment to restore it.

There must be a comprehensive immigration reform that saves the Dreamers and creates a path to citizenship for the millions of immigrants upon whom Florida’s and the nation’s agricultural, hospitality and construction industries depend.

Independence must be restored to the Justice Department, the intelligence agencies, the Postal Service and the Environmental Protection Agency, among other departments that the Trump administration has savaged.

Biden has reiterated his independence from the National Rifle Association, which he helped defeat in 1993 with the background check law, and in 1994 with a 10-year ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. The ban lapsed in 2004 when Republicans controlled the House.

The massacres at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut and Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland might have been averted. Biden’s 11-page plan includes a renewed assault weapons ban, a buyback program and universal background checks, all of which have broad support across America. A vote for the Biden-Harris ticket honors the 17 lives lost at Parkland.

When such tragedies occur, Americans have expected words of comfort and empathy from their presidents, who never before disappointed them. But the one in office now has yet to express any remorse for the victims of the coronavirus. Sad to say, he’s incapable.

Compare that to how, in accepting his party’s nomination Thursday night, Biden spoke to those who’ve suffered unimaginable loss during the pandemic.

“I know how it feels to lose someone you love. I know that deep black hole that opens up in your chest. That you feel your whole being is sucked into it. I know how mean and cruel and unfair life can be sometimes.

“But I’ve learned two things.

“First, your loved ones may have left this Earth but they never leave your heart. They will always be with you.

“And second, I found the best way through pain and loss and grief is to find purpose.

“As God’s children each of us have a purpose in our lives.”

In this time of collective loss and grief, the American people have a purpose. It is to entrust their highest office to a decent man in whom kindness and empathy are as natural as drawing breath.

As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.”

Biden and Harris are the right people to set the right example.

The presidency is, as Teddy Roosevelt put it, a “bully pulpit.”

Trump has profaned that pulpit. Joe Biden will fill it with honor.

Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Dan Sweeney, Steve Bousquet and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.