Donald Trump for president

OPINION:

November’s election presents a clear choice. One side offers a candidate who is a replaceable cog in a party machine. When President Biden sagged in the polls, it wasn’t a problem for the Democratic Party machine.

Party elites merely appointed one of the worst-performing primary contenders to stand in place of the man chosen by the party’s voters. The leaders of the Democratic Party, it turns out, are not as big on democracy as they often claim.

That’s why Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard recently renounced their lifetime association with the Democratic Party — and help the candidate on the other side as a result.

The party that once represented the anti-war left has evolved into a cheerleader for endless foreign conflict. The Biden-Harris administration’s foreign policy choices have poured gasoline on the fire of international strife — to the delight of defense contractors happy to enrich those who help sell more of their bombs and missiles.

The party that once celebrated the burning of U.S. flags in the name of free speech is now sending people to jail for posting funny pictures on the internet. For example, Douglass Mackey is appealing his federal conviction for mocking Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign as the party gleefully uses the power of government to silence anyone with a divergent opinion by calling it “misinformation.”

The machine’s latest candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, is not a particularly charismatic figure. Her speeches lack the eloquence of President Barack Obama or the sincerity of President Jimmy Carter. She has few solid accomplishments, having never earned a paycheck outside of government — aside from her alleged past employment slinging fries at McDonald’s.

This is not what the resume of a presidential aspirant is supposed to look like. Fortunately, there is a better choice, and that choice is former President Donald Trump.

Mr. Trump spent his career building things and employing people. He ran for the White House in 2016 not to enrich himself — he was already a billionaire — but to give back to his country. He has been attacked like no other chief executive for one simple reason: He refuses to do the bidding of the machine.

The former president has been spied on, investigated, audited and examined more closely than any other candidate in the history of our republic. The FBI searched his home, snooping through the belongings of his wife and teenage son. Mr. Trump has been brought to trial on farcical crimes before a conflicted judge and a biased jury.

He has even taken a bullet to the head, but he stood back up, defiant, vowing to “Fight, fight, fight.” That moment captured who he is. Instead of cowering in the face of opposition, he has committed to winning the election and breaking the machine.

There will be single-issue activists who bemoan Mr. Trump’s lack of purity on their favorite topic, but they should not fall into this trap. There is no issue on which Ms. Harris would be a better choice than Mr. Trump. Aside from funeral directors, tax collectors and repo men, nobody is going to find greater prosperity after four more years of Biden-Harris policies.

This is why pro-life activists must check their disappointment with Mr. Trump’s decision to compromise on abortion. The job of a leader in a constitutional republic is to reflect the will of the voters, not to impose his will upon them. Activists must redouble their efforts to change the hearts and minds of the public at the state level, winning abortion-related ballot initiatives, before demanding purity at the federal level. 

With America’s prosperity on the line, we can’t afford to elect another machine candidate. The Washington Times endorses Donald Trump for president.

America’s future is on the line.