Editorial: The Times editorial board recommends Joe Biden for president

Enough is enough. Four years after Donald Trump won the presidential election, it is time for a nationwide reckoning.

The election of Democrat Joe Biden in November will go far toward restoring honor and integrity to the presidency and the national ethos.

The vindictiveness and greed that have characterized Trump’s tenure wrought damage to government, institutions and U.S. relationships abroad that will take years to mend. Federal failures to resolve the pandemic and economic crises require accountability. And the intentional aggravation of partisan divides across the country cannot be allowed to persist.

The list of specific grievances against Trump is long. The latest outrage is deploying federal agents to Seattle and other cities uninvited to confront protesters, in some cases, brutally. He extorted the Ukrainian president for political gain. He detained masses of migrant children at the border, separating them from their parents. He has rolled back environmental protections across the country and withdrew the nation from the Paris climate accords. He hawked beans on the Resolute desk in the Oval Office and used negotiations with foreign rulers to drum up business for his resorts. He attacked mail-in-voting and threatened to defund the Postal Service. And he so ineptly managed a pandemic that infections are still climbing and supplies are still short more than six months after the first case was diagnosed. More than 142,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, and many of them could have been saved but for Trump’s routine undermining of health experts.

Biden can fix this mess.

The Biden agenda is already known, as is his established history of public service. As Delaware’s U.S. senator for 36 years, he cultivated a reputation for thoughtful coalition-building and chaired powerful committees on the judiciary and foreign relations. The expertise he developed across those decades made him a strong partner as vice president to President Barack Obama. Biden directly oversaw Iraq policy and the Great Recession’s stimulus package simultaneously, a testament to his capacity to manage immense challenges. His boldness on gay marriage must also be remembered. In May 2012, Biden pulled the administration onto the right side of history.

Biden’s experience shows he can rescue America from the disarray wrought by Trump. Allowing the nation’s downward path to continue would escalate the damage from disastrous to potentially irreversible.

Biden advocated widespread free testing for COVID-19 months ago and has a comprehensive plan to mobilize federal resources against this pandemic — and future ones. His proven abilities as a stable, pragmatic global figure will reconcile the U.S. with the Paris climate agreement and the World Health Organization, among other international bonds Trump wants severed. Biden has the credibility to oversee reconstruction of economic and foreign-trade sectors hurting today, and specific blueprints for how he’ll do so.

But even these immense needs are only aspects of why Biden is the right choice. He also has pledged to correct a historical shortcoming by naming a woman as vice president. Time and again, Biden has deployed his political power to help people. He has spoken of himself as a “transition candidate” to prepare the highest level of American government for a generational handoff. But he has the skills and the extensive experience to be much more: the transformative public servant to guide America back to its founding ideals. Domestic tranquility, promoting the general welfare and establishing justice aren’t just words written on parchment. They were, and are, the principles American governance was built to fulfill.

Trump has shown an utter inability to carry out these values; rather, he seems actively to subvert them. Giving him four more years to figure out how to wield power would be a monumental mistake.

Voters should put Biden into the White House this November with a mandate to heal the nation. A better path lies before America than the one we’re on. Biden can put us on that course.