At the end of every campaign, advocates of a candidate (like me) make a final list of all the issues and policies that we think should matter to other voters, and why our guy is better on them.

I don’t have that list.

Don’t get me wrong: As a conservative and former Republican who has already voted for former Vice President Joe Biden, I could create an entire inventory of issues, even without the lightning strike of the pandemic, where I think Biden is a better pick for president than another four years of President Donald Trump. From budget deficits to nuclear arms control, I could easily make the case for Biden, even if I might concede that I would prefer a few of Trump’s policies (such as cutting government regulations and increasing defense spending) over any Democratic administration.

But I did not vote in this election based on policy. Neither should you. The election of 2020 is about the moral future of the American nation, and so I voted for a good man with whom I have some political disagreements over an evil man with whom I share not a single value as a human being. Trump is the most morally defective human being ever to hold the office of the presidency, worse by every measure than any of the rascals, satyrs or racists who have sat in the Oval Office. This is vastly more important than marginal tax rates or federal judges.

Of course, I can also offer an inventory of the disasters that have befallen us because of Trump’s essential nature as a ball of moral anti-matter. But I would also argue that these failures do not matter now. From the American carnage of COVID-19 to the implosion of our economy to the collapse of America’s position in the world, our morally blind choice in 2016 has already levied its payment on us, in both blood and treasure.

We cannot turn back the clock. 

What we can do is stem the pandemic and recover from the recession. We can shore up our tattered alliances. But none of this will happen — and nothing else will matter — if we lose the moral core of our identity as a democracy.