One of the things Joe Biden is running on is a return to “decency.” For many Americans seemingly exhausted by the state of constant political fighting (or nonviolent civil war, if you believe Dennis Prager), it seems to be nice to get back to a place of decency and national unity. There is just one problem.

Joe Biden is not the man who can bring unity. That’s largely because, when it comes to decency, he is very deficient. The media might tell you one thing, but there is plenty of evidence that Biden’s lack of decency not only exists but will make unity impossible.

For one thing, the deep divisions on multiple issues that drive the present state of contentious disunity have existed for a long time and have been growing toxic for a long time.

For instance, take gun control.

The fact is, far too many of the solutions proposed by the Democrats running for president involved punishing millions of law-abiding Americans for crimes and acts of madness they did not commit. Parkland, Sandy Hook, Aurora, Sutherland Springs, Las Vegas — all were cited as the justification for massive infringements on the Second Amendment.

On their own, and in conjunction with pro-Second Amendment groups like the National Rifle Association, millions of Patriots objected to that injustice. They made those objections stick through successful grassroots action. Yet that grassroots action against injustice (writing lawmakers, educating their fellow Americans, and even working to defeat anti-Second Amendment officials through the electoral process) has been labeled “domestic terrorism” by none other than New York’s attorney general.

Beto O'Rourke once promised, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15.” Joe Biden just hired Beto’s campaign manager as his own, and he plans to hire Beto as his “gun-control czar.”

It’s kind of hard to unify a country after stuff like that. It becomes doubly hard when, after that rhetoric, abusive investigations are launched with the intent of silencing certain voices. But yeah, media pundits, tell us again how it’s Second Amendment supporters who are the problem.

Biden is no stranger to vilification of opponents. There is, of course, the moment he falsely claimed Mitt Romney would put African Americans “back in chains.” It was a vicious slander — saying slavery would come back. But at the time, it looked as if Romney had a chance to beat Barack Obama — and he did come within a few hundred thousand votes of flipping that election into an Electoral College win like Donald Trump pulled off four years later.

Biden also was proud of the grotesque defeat of Robert Bork’s Supreme Court nomination in 1987 and sought to use it to launch his 1988 presidential campaign. Bork’s reputation over a long career of public service? Small price to pay for Biden’s ambition. Karma struck when Biden was caught plagiarizing speeches the next year, but that karma didn’t put Bork on the Supreme Court. Nor did that karma halt the vitriolic path we are on today. Biden’s horrific treatment of Bork became the template for how Democrats treat Republican judicial nominees. Ask Brett Kavanaugh.

But the lack of decency also extends to inaction. Remember when John Lewis smeared John McCain as a racist in 2008? Biden was silent … and even seemed like he had discarded the friendship. While maybe that smear wasn’t decisive, Biden said nothing — and even today proclaims his friendship with McCain as he runs for president for the third time.

We’ll leave it to you to judge if his treatment of McCain is that of a true friend. But the actions and inactions in politics probably aren’t the most relevant or dispositive when it comes to Biden’s lack of decency. Let’s look at how he mistreated someone who was utterly powerless to resist him: Curtis C. Dunn.

In 1972, Biden’s first wife and daughter were killed in an accident involving a tractor trailer. Anyone who has lost a family member to such an accident can comprehend the pain involved. But Biden proceeded to falsely paint Dunn as a drunk driver. He reportedly apologized, but what kind of person — in a position of power and influence, no less — would unleash such a dishonest smear in the first place?

And all of this is to say nothing about Biden’s angry outbursts against voters on the campaign trail. Among other episodes, he’s called a woman a “lying, dog-faced pony soldier” (whatever that means) and nearly picked a fistfight with a guy over banning the “AR-14.”

If America is to somehow bridge the Red-Blue divide that seems likely to tear it apart, it will need leaders who are, when it comes down to it, decent people. Joe Biden’s actions over the years show he is lacking in that department — and he’s getting worse. To think he can bring about unity with a proven lack of decency is blind partisan foolishness.