This year, I have cast my vote, by mail, for former Vice President Joe Biden. This wasn’t a hard decision for me. In fact, there wasn’t even anything to grapple over.

Biden is the only logical choice for president of the United States.

America is broken. We are dying. Hugs are banned. Police murder innocent Black people. Children are in cages. Abortion is on the chopping block. Human rights have been thrown away faster than the homophobic Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed to the Supreme Court.

Donald Trump did that. If you are voting for Trump, you are endorsing hatred, death and the end of democracy.

America has always had flaws. Our Senate barely represents the American people. The Electoral College regularly fails to deliver the president that Americans selected. And money from powerful lobbies speaks louder than our voices. If these flaws were cracks in America’s foundation, Trump’s presidency blew it apart with a jackhammer and dynamite.

If I heard our country being described on the news, I would assume we should be sending aid there to help restore democracy. We are the countries that used to need our help. Foreign leaders are invited into our secure elections to interfere and cast influence. Women’s bodies are no longer their own as border patrol doctors remove their reproductive organs against their will. Over 540 children are still not reunited with their parents after Trump’s cruel immigration policies. Almost 230,000 lives have been lost due to a virus that Trump said, on multiple occasions, we simply need to “learn to live with.” The climate is physically deteriorating around us, killing people with ferocious storms and dangerous wildfires as the president of the U.S. rolls back environmental protections in favor of business.

Black people in America have been pushed to the corners of our society with tear gas and hatred and are supposed to call a man who turns a blind eye to police brutality their president. They live in a nation where cries of “Law and Order” mean death and incarceration. They live in a nation where a pandemic disproportionately affects them due to historically unfair systems that allow for housing disparities, pre-existing conditions, a disproportionate number of low-wage jobs considered essential and an understandable distrust for the white-dominated healthcare industry.

As a woman in America, I am scared for my future. My access to reproductive healthcare is at risk under Barrett. Millions of Americans continue to rally behind a man who is on tape saying, “Grab her by the pussy.” I want to be a journalist when I grow up, but I fear that speaking the truth may get me called a “nasty woman,” or worse.

I supported Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and then Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in the primary. I have a vision for an America with a level playing field, where every single person has an equal chance to succeed. This involves giving those who the broken America of the past has left behind, a helping hand. This involves massive investments in the climate and education — the future. This involves an entirely reimagined prison system focused on restorative justice and treating prisoners like humans, not animals. My vision for America means anyone can go to the hospital without spending a single penny.

If my vision of America is a spaghetti dinner, Biden’s vision is lacking meatballs but Trump’s America is an empty can of Spaghetti-Os.

I support Biden because while he cannot rebuild the damage that Trump dynamite has wreaked on America’s standing in the world and our broken lives at home, he can start the process of healing. When I look to Biden, I see a man who has lost his son, his first wife and his infant child to tragedies. I see a man who believes in science, believes all people are created equally and believes that America is better than Trump.

We are, right? It’s hard to tell right now in this moment of grief and despair, but I know we won’t find out anything about our possibility under Trump. With Biden, I have hope.

I cast my vote for Biden because I want to grow up in a country where I am not scared that going to a country music concert will mean someone with an AR-15 will gun me down. I voted for Biden because I want to see a nation-wide strategy to combat the coronavirus. I am sick and tired of Black people being shot by the police for the color of their skin. I want us to be a country that embraces immigrants. I voted for Biden because I want to live.

Trump’s America is deadly — guns, a virus out of control, impending climate change and slashed health insurance.

I am a journalist, and I am supposed to be unbiased. But when lives are at stake, when the future of our country is at stake — it is my job to say something about it.