Four more for Joe Biden:
The Des Moines Register editorial board endorses Biden for the presidency of the United States.
Biden, a former vice president and a senator for 36 years, embraces being a public servant. He understands how government should work. He is a statesman who puts other people and his country before himself.
He is empathetic. Iowa was reminded of this leading up to the caucuses, when the man who has endured the losses of his first wife and two children repeatedly took time to share quiet moments with others grieving the loss of loved ones.
Biden has the experience in government to hit the ground running in January. He has already created a “cabinet in waiting” on the pandemic, made up of experts from previous presidential administrations. It is working behind the scenes on plans for distributing vaccines, ramping up testing and reopening more schools.
Biden knows how Congress works and how to work across the aisle to get things done. That's critical. Congress is on the brink of irreparable partisan dysfunction. If Congress doesn't work, neither does the country.
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America needs more stability, civility and respect for democratic institutions.
Democratic challenger Joe Biden isn’t flashy or charismatic. But he is solid and experienced. He served eight years as vice president and more than three decades in the U.S. Senate. He will assemble a strong team of advisers and respect their expertise. Biden will approach the job of being the most powerful person on the planet with the seriousness it deserves.
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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.
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President Trump has been a disaster as a leader and a disgrace to the office. He has made more than 20,000 false or misleading statements. He has praised authoritarian rulers while disparaging allies whose soldiers have fought alongside U.S. troops in battle. He publicly sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin against our own intelligence agencies in their firm conclusion that Russia meddled on his behalf in the 2016 election. He has shattered modern presidential norms by refusing to put his assets in a blind trust and has profited from hotels, resorts and other holdings controlled by his children.
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Former Vice President Joe Biden, 77, offers a chance for a return to the steady leadership this nation needs as it takes on multiple crises. He speaks often of being a president of all Americans whether they voted for him or not — a concept foreign to the current occupant of the White House, who is counting on his base to bail him out in a polarized electorate. As a senator, the Delaware Democrat worked with and had friendships with his colleagues across the aisle, most notably the late John McCain of Arizona (whose widow, Cindy, just endorsed him).
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