I'm voting for Biden to make America good again

On the Democratic National Convention's second night, Joe Biden's wife, Jill, took America inside her longtime marriage to the presidential nominee.

These things usually strike me as schmaltzy and inauthentic — prepackaged montages about political leaders and their families, personal trials and triumphs, their "normal" lives, old photos of first starting out.

But as much as we know Joe — indeed, he's been in public office on and off for the past 50 years — we saw more of the Bidens than ever before. The life they rebuilt after the deaths of Joe's first wife and daughter, their support of one another through decades of failure and successes, the agonizing loss of another child, their commitment to giving back. And whatever you think of Biden's politics, the bottom line is clear: They're good people.

That might not always be a leading priority in presidential politics. Being a fundamentally good person wasn't enough to keep Jimmy Carter in the White House. Being a fundamentally bad person wasn't enough to stop Richard Nixon from winning the White House. America has warmed to George W. Bush's goodness since he left office. And it seems to have accepted Bill Clinton's patent awfulness. Voters compartmentalize.

But this year, it feels like merely being a good person takes on more weight. After four years of a corrupt, unethical, narcissistic, racist, sexist, bullying, shaming, vengeful, spiteful, greedy, needy, lying jerk in the White House, goodness has been gone for too long.

And, ultimately, Biden's goodness is why he's getting my vote.

Our policies don't always align. As a conservative, I find much to disagree with. But we need to make America good again, and I know that Joe Biden wants that too.

Trump's lack of goodness is evidenced in his kneecapping and silencing of his critics, including in the media. It's in his sexist attacks on women. It's in his shameful smears against his own public servants, military heroes and American leaders — even dead ones.

Trump's disregard for goodness has seeped into the fabric of the nation, as he has encouraged Americans to turn against Americans, to blame our neighbors for our lots, to hate the media, the establishment, the left, the right, immigrants, foreigners, the NFL, the FBI and anyone else who makes a useful target for him.

It has led to corruption at nearly every level of government. It is currently leading to attempts at voter suppression and could result in elections that are neither fair nor free.

The fact that Trump is a terrible person with no sense of what's right and what's wrong has tainted his entire presidency and everything he's done during it.

We need to be good again. We need a president who will respect the rules of basic common decency, as well as the rule of law. We need a president who, even when he's pushing policies half the country doesn't support, won't demonize his opponents as enemies of the people.

We need a president who believes America is already great not because it looks like him but because it doesn't, and who will celebrate and honor the hardworking people who came here to find a better life.

We need a president who thinks kids belong in classrooms, not cages, who thinks our men and women in uniform deserve better than to be used as props, who thinks our allies are our great advantage and that our enemies deserve our scorn, not admiration.