I have to concur with the first part of the essay. Mr. Gore would have led United States in a better direction than Mr. Bush.

But the D’s failed to take appropriate action in 1998. Mr. Clinton got caught in an affair, lied about it, and lied about in a court of law. The power to make the right decision at the right time laid in the hands of the D Senators of that time. But they went partisan. There are two ramifications to their inaction.

First, like it or not, there are voters who want to see politicians behave morally. Some of them went R because it seemed the R’s had a better history of conducting themselves in a moral fashion. Some of them stopped voting because the D’s seemed no longer worthy of their votes.

Second, where was the deterrence? If a D president could get away with his shenanigans, what was the incentive for an R to also behave immorally — or the R party to find candidates with high standards to earn votes?

If we are going to play the hypothetical game, then I would say the failure of the D senators in 1998 has a direct impact on the election of Mr. Trump in 2016.

I will say this again: like or not, there are voters who want to see politicians behave morally. They will cast their vote accordingly. You cannot disparage the reason for why they cast their vote this way or that way — or choose not to vote at all. Unless you have a mechanism to ban voters who base their vote on morals, you will have to live with their decision.

If Sanders voters do not want to vote for Biden, that is their prerogative. Let Mr. Biden and his campaign team figure out how to earn their trust.