Most of these presidential wannabes, especially youthful senators, seem to lack weightiness. They sound as though they already have lost the forest for the trees. The biggest issue we face isn’t health care or Russia. It’s certainly not a caravan of migrants coming from Central America and still a thousand miles away. Rather, we are in a fight for our democracy and our decency; we are engaged in an existential battle to defend objective reality and the norms and institutions that we foolishly took for granted. Democrats who want the big job need to be addressing big things.

There is one potential 2020 candidate who is hitting the high notes: former vice president Joe Biden. “The example we’re showing the rest of the world is sad. Our values are being shredded. Our democracy’s under assault. A president has put his own interest before those of our ideals,” he said at a Kentucky campaign stop. “The question is not who Donald Trump is. America knows who he is. The question is, ‘Who are we?’ ” Bingo!

At a New Jersey stop in September, Biden thundered: “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired about what’s going on in this country today. This is not who we are. This is not the America I know.” He went on: “We are a generous people. We are an honorable people. We are an inclusive people. That’s who we are.”

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Certainly, Biden is taking it to Republicans for trying to repeal Obamacare and for their tax-cut plan. But mostly he’s calling on them to defend their own principles and live up to their oaths. “What has become of us? My Republican colleagues know better, but they’re silent,” Biden said. “Where are they?” Umm, under their desks, maybe?

I’ll admit that I’ve changed my expectations and priorities for presidential candidates. Sure, I want to know generally what they plan on doing and how they are going to do it. However, let’s be clear: If white papers won elections, Clinton would be in the Oval Office. Moreover, even well-intentioned candidates change their tune when they get into office and are forced to grapple with their own party, not to mention the opposing party. I’m not going to hold it against a candidate this time around (either a Democrat or a primary challenger to Trump) if he or she lacks an 18-point plan to slow climate change; I’ll settle for someone who understands that it is real and that it is government’s job to address it. Yes, I’d prefer that the candidate have a government ethics plan, but the details can be worked out later. It would be great to hear about the details of an alternative tax plan, but for now, all I want to hear is that we indeed have a debt crisis and that any relief should go to the true middle and working class, with subsidies to encourage work.

Much more than policy specifics, I (along with many voters, I suspect) want to hear candidates defend our democratic values. I want to hear them explain why America cannot have a transactional foreign policy. I’d like to hear whether they understand where we have gone astray, and whether they are committed to restoring respectful governance and rebuilding damaged institutions. Do they think that their political opponents are evil or that facts don’t matter? I want to know that they grasp what the rule of law means and will commit to setting up guardrails to prevent a repeat of the Trump assault on the courts and the Justice Department.

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I say this not only because these major issues — the “vision thing,” as President George H.W. Bush once put it — must be addressed before we get to nettlesome policy issues, but also because I have come to believe that the way to beat Trump is not to join him in the insult game, for which he has few peers, or to argue that he has no idea what he’s doing, but rather, to remind Americans of those causes and ideals that are greater than party. There’s a serious inspiration void these days, which is why Democrats are thrilled to hear Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Tex.) talk about patriotism and protest and why Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) makes such an impression talking about empathy, community and human rights. Americans are craving some uplift, and in providing some of it, 2020 contenders will not only appear presidential, but also they will reveal how small and weak Trump is.