On the editorial page of my local, semi-weekly newspaper, many have attacked President Trump’s policies, but they mostly attack his personality.

I didn’t vote for Trump. I still don’t like his personality, his tweet tantrums, and his name-calling. During his administration, I’ve resisted writing a defense for him—until now.

Let’s put aside personality and look at the two parties’ policies in light of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Life

Trump has been declared the most pro-life president. As one of his first acts as president, he reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy and followed with many other pro-life policies. He was the first president to ever attend the March for Life.

The Democrats continually fight for the right to murder babies in their mothers’ wombs. In 2019, New York had the audacity to celebrate the passage of a birthday-abortion bill (misnamed the Reproductive Health Act) by lighting the One World Trade Center Tower.

As California’s attorney general, Kamala Harris covered Planned Parenthood tracks as they illegally sold aborted baby body parts. Instead of prosecuting them, she attacked the whistleblower.

She also attempted to force pregnancy resource centers to advertise abortions, contrary to their mission. Fortunately, the Supreme Court ruled against Harris in NIFLA v. Becerra in 2018.

The governors of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and California sent COVID-positive people into nursing homes, killing thousands. The higher COVID death numbers gave them the excuse to continue to restrict their citizens’ liberties for extended time—all in the name of health safety.

The Republican governors didn’t commit this biological crime.

Liberty

Trump’s administration has focused on our first liberty, religious liberty, here and abroad. He reversed the Obama IRS policy of harassing conservative and faith-based nonprofits. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo works to end the persecution of faith communities worldwide.

Democrats want to pass the so-called Equality Act that will strip religious liberty protections from people of faith and force them to violate their sincerely held beliefs.

Republicans hold that individuals have the right to express their faith in all areas of their lives. Democrats want people to keep their religious expression inside houses of worship—but they won’t even grant them that freedom during the pandemic.

As part of the COVID restrictions, Democrat governors have prevented churches and other houses of faith from meeting. Yet, they allow other similar groups to gather. In Nevada, the casinos opened, not churches. In California, churches can’t sing, but protesters yell in the streets. In Washington, some churches can meet with social distancing and capacity restrictions. But a crowd of protesters can block the I-5 freeway in the middle of Seattle.

Democrat governors reject the philosophy of our Founding Fathers and rule with a heavy hand, lopsided priorities, and moving goalposts. Ordinary citizens live with restrictions while released criminals freely reoffended.

For decades, public schools have shown no improvement in students testing scores. Now that the pandemic has forced students to work from home, parents have become more aware of what their children are taught or not taught. Parents want the freedom to chose how their children receive their education.

President Trump has called for government dollars to follow the child. Doing this would encourage competition between schools. The Republican platform recognizes that “parents are a child’s first and foremost educators,” not the government. The Republicans want to provide families with school choice and support homeschooling and private schools.

The Democrats, on the other hand, insist on maintaining the socialist-style of schooling that the government schools provide. They reject the freedom of school choice. Instead, they prefer that all children be held hostage in schools that fail to teach them the 3Rs, but teach them to hate America and confuse them with queer theory.

Law and Order Brings Happiness

When protests followed the death of George Floyd, the Washington cities of Kirkland and Snohomish allowed armed citizens to protect businesses from being looted. The deterrence worked. When a handful of rioters showed up in Snohomish, they saw the gun-toting patriots lining the main street and left.

In several major Democrat cities, however, civic leaders acquiesced to BLM and Antifa rioters. Abandoning her duty to protect the public, Seattle Jenny Mayor Durken permitted insurrectionists to set up CHAZ/CHOP and terrorize Capitol Hill residents for over three weeks. Her version of a “Summer of Love.”

When Washington Governor Jay Inslee heard what had happened in Seattle, he simply saluted, “#Black Lives Matter,” (in the manner of Sieg Heil in my mind) in response and refused to call the National Guard to protect the state’s citizens from the destructive communist revolutionaries. These Democrat officials should be held responsible for the destruction they allowed on their watch.

Respecting federalism, Trump demanded they end the violence. He didn’t send in troops.

Through a Twitter exchange on June 11, the Seattle mayor and the Washington governor thumbed their noses at the President with snide remarks: “Make us all safe. Go back to your bunker. #BlackLivesMatter,” Durkan wrote on Twitter.

Eventually, Trump did send well-marked police to Portland, but only to protect federal property, keeping with the Constitution. For over a hundred days, Democrat-run Portland continues to burn and be overrun by thugs with no end in sight.

People can’t live or conduct business under these rioting conditions—particularly if their businesses have been burned down. Only when the rule of law is enforced and private property is protected can citizens pursue happiness.

Choose This Day

In November, we basically have two choices: the party of death, compelled speech, religious persecution, stripped civil liberties, and thugs silencing opposition; or the party of life, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, Constitutional liberty, and the rule of law.

Today, I place before you Life and Death. Choose Life so that America will remain the land of the free.