Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders will face each other in their first one-on-one debate Sunday night as Democrats continue deciding who we want to challenge President Trump – a man who shows us every day that he is unfit for our nation’s highest office and must be replaced.

Right now, the only thing that can save our country from four more years of Trump’s bumbling malfeasance is a united effort by Democrats, independents and wise Republicans who see Trump for the failure that he is and are looking for a healer, not a divider.

For the sake of everyone, Democratic voters and our allies need to unify as quickly and as effectively as possible. The “quickly” part is vital, but so is the “effectively.” Effective reconciliation takes time. It takes patience. It takes understanding and respect.

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To be sure, we are still not done with the primary process. The jury is still out, but the verdict will soon be heard.

After the last couple of Tuesdays, it has become clear that, given the present trajectory, Biden has a significant pledged delegate lead based on the votes of those participating in over 26 nominating contests to date.

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Sanders and his loyal supporters are not ready to throw in the towel. They will need a while. We Democrats need to give them that, but we also must ask them to start talking about how we come together. The more divided we are, the happier we make Trump and enhance his chances of reelection.

Make no mistake, the Biden-Sanders race is not between a stodgy establishment figure and an outside firebrand. Biden has been part of the Democratic Party for decades. And Sanders, who has represented Vermont in the House and now the Senate as an independent, has chosen the Democratic Party as the best vehicle to bring his ideas to a larger audience.

The two candidates offer overlapping visions of where this party and this country should go.

Biden is a moderate with progressive roots and a long history of fighting for worthy causes.

Sanders – who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 – is a relative newcomer to Democratic Party politics. But he has caucused with the Democrats for his entire career in the House and Senate. He brings something to the party that it sorely needs.

Sanders has attracted huge support and endless enthusiasm from a very significant portion of the Democratic electorate. He and they have earned the right to have their voices heard in deciding the policies that the Democratic Party will espouse in this year’s election campaign.

Calls on Sanders to pull out of the presidential race will only exacerbate tensions. He will not be forced out. He will not be talked out. He has to be beaten fairly and squarely in a contest of ideas, with all ideas given consideration.

Both candidates realize this. In his victory speech Tuesday night after the last round of nominating contests, Biden saluted the passion and commitment of Sanders and his supporters. Biden offered to ally with them but made no calls for Sanders to withdraw from the presidential race.

Not only do both Sanders and Biden recognize the need for eventual unity; the vast majority of the supporters of both candidates do as well.

For his part, Sanders said the next day: “Donald Trump must be defeated, and I will do everything in my power to make that happen.”

While that obviously includes supporting the eventual Democratic nominee for president, Sanders also made clear that he and his followers have policy priorities that they are passionate about, such as combatting climate change, student debt relief, mandating living wages, and of course, “Medicare-for-all.”

Sanders laid out a set of questions he intends to ask his friend Joe Biden about those core issues in the Sunday night debate. These are questions that need to be asked. They need to be answered. And the problems they highlight need to be addressed.

The debate can go a long way toward helping Sanders’ supporters come on board in support of the Democratic presidential nominee. It will help add a new generation of younger voters to the broad coalition of Barack Obama supporters and others that Joe Biden has reassembled.

Despite sweeping victories in almost all voter subgroups, exit polls in Michigan showed Biden losing voters under 30 by 57 points. That’s an indispensable voting block – not just for defeating Trump this election, but for building the future of the Democratic Party.

As Sanders said Wednesday, “to win in the future you need to win the voters who represent the future of our country and you must speak to the issues of concern to them.”

Not only do both Sanders and Biden recognize the need for eventual unity; the vast majority of the supporters of both candidates do as well.

In exit polls in Michigan, Missouri and Washington of those who voted in primaries Tuesday, 90 percent of Biden’s supporters said they would support whoever is the eventual Democratic nominee for president.

And about 80 percent of Sanders voters said they would vote for the Democratic nominee in November.

That makes sense for the Democratic voters of 2020, and for the Democratic voters in election years yet to come. Sanders ally Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York said after Tuesday, referring to Biden’s strength with older and minority voters, “we don’t blame voters, we don’t dismiss voters, and we don’t think of people as disposable.”

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As we move forward, it’s important that we move in the same direction, if not in lockstep. Our destination is the same for all of us – replacing the incompetent Donald Trump with competent and enlightened leadership.

It's going to take time, but we are all going to come together to send Trump into political retirement. We have to because we all need each other, our country needs all of us, and we desperately need a new president.

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