WASHINGTON — Joe Biden inspired nonviolent resistance across America and met the moment of leading an anguished nation.

Nonviolent resistance happens when masses of people rise up and change the world — to protest a president, war or injustice — with no arms. You could see determination in their eyes and jaws — their faces covered by masks, standing six feet apart in a silent kind of unison.

Millions of voters stood in line for hours — in Wisconsin, Virginia, Georgia, Texas — for days of early voting. They stood despite a raging pandemic. Martin Luther King Jr. and suffrage leaders would be proud of us, literally standing up for our rights. That's how women won the vote in 1920.

People didn't need to talk. Everyone knew what they came for. It's a record turnout not only in numbers but in democracy's gravitas. Elections usually bring exuberance. In 2020, hopes mix with fears of street violence, incited by a president, who praises mobs made of "very fine people." The White House looks like a prison fortress.

Common decency is on the ballot; so is a man with a plan.

President Donald Trump's crude excesses led us down to a valley of rocks and salt. His burning hatred for government experts and scientists laid our health and economy low. Our American optimism limps in the dark, toward a small light in the sky.

Writing before polls close, let me tell you why I feel better about voting for Joe Biden than I ever thought I would. The veteran campaigner is changed and chastened by the long winding road to office, saved in the South Carolina primary. He speaks in slower cadences, choosing words with more meaning and care, speaking to the diverse American community like a neighbor.

"Joe" — with a bit of biblical Job — is not in Delaware anymore. Yet the small-town sensibility is refreshing after the sorrows we've seen. We the people are chastened, too.

Above all, Biden's not a relic but one who grasps the urgency of putting America back together again. More than those he ran against, he understands the promise, the deal Franklin Delano Roosevelt made with the people. It's a given for the generation born during the hardship of the FDR years: You deserve a decent school, house and job to take care of your family.

In his blood and bones, Biden believes in creating programs, especially in extraordinary crises, to help workaday people.

The man who would be president is aged, near 78, finding a map of the human heart along the way. He suffered the loss of his son Beau in 2015. Empathy has long been a strong point for Biden, but he seems humbler and wiser.

Biden is sobered up from the garrulous senator and vice president Washington knew for so long. He was often wrong on big things: supporting the Iraq War and chairing the ill-fated Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

Anita Hill, who told a searing tale of Thomas's advances at work, got burned by Biden and Republicans. They treated her like a witch at the Salem trials, just missing the duckpond.

Hill says she supports Biden. Then so can I. (Arch-conservative Thomas remains on the Court, longer than any member.) Biden invited a woman of color, Senator Kamala Harris, D-Calif., as his running mate. That lifts spirits and voices.

Born during FDR's presidency, Biden shares that with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat. They are not baby boomers — we've had three in the Oval, two too many — but of the "silent" generation born in the Depression and World War II. The time when America looked and listened to a beloved president (in "Fireside" radio chats) to help earn their daily bread, do public works projects and then win a war worth fighting for. Children, many from immigrant families, got first-class educations in the public schools.

The loud, spirited baby boomers sucked all the attention away from the older silent generation. Trump and George W. Bush, spoiled sons of privilege, lost the popular vote but still wrested a win. Can it happen again?

The silent generation never had a president. Let Biden's journey light our path.

Jamie Stiehm writes on Washington politics and history. She may be reached at JamieStiehm.com. To read her weekly column and find out more about Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, please visit creators.com.

Image courtesy of Chatham House