This is a plea to all my fellow Americans who haven’t taken complete leave of their senses. Think of someone you know whom you really cannot stand. Let’s call him Mr. X. He could be a current or former coworker, neighbor, friend, or family member. In any case, you simply loathe him. (It can be a woman if you prefer: Madam X.) Next, imagine you and Mr. X happen to be aboard a ship on a one-day cruise. Suddenly, there’s a storm, and the ship’s captain hits his head on a beam and passes out. The only other person on board who knows how to steer a ship is your hated Mr. X. The mere sight of him repulses you, and you’re at wit’s end imagining all the credit he’ll get when he guides the ship safely to shore. Are you going to let your hatred of Mr. X deter you from doing the logical thing and supporting his taking over the ship’s wheel? Are you really going to let some amateur steer the ship instead, putting all your lives at risk, just to keep Mr. X from basking in the spotlight and getting the credit?

You know where this is heading: Donald Trump is Mr. X, and the amateur in question is Kamala Harris. But if only she were merely an amateur, like Dan Quayle, Sarah Palin, or J.D. Vance. If only the singular question on our minds was: is she ready to be president? But it goes far, far beyond that.

Instead of repeating the conservative talking point that Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, comprise the furthest Left ticket in American history, let’s consider the question this way: can you name a major party presidential ticket that was more Left than Harris-Walz? I’ll save you the trouble; you can’t. But that alone isn’t cause for alarm, because historically our country hasn’t been too far left. As I often remind conservatives, Barack Obama was a centrist (yes, really). The problem is in the substance. Here’s a sampling of what a Harris-Walz administration will look like:

1. Porous Borders: I won’t call them ‘open borders’, because that would be a total abandonment of any border security whatsoever; not even Harris-Walz would do that. But here’s what will continue to happen: thousands upon thousands of individuals will show up to our Southern border requesting asylum, even though the United States is not the stable nation closest to their country of origin. They’ll apply for asylum on the spot, and while their papers are being processed (which can take years), they won’t have to remain in Mexico, the country through which they reached ours. Instead, they’ll be allowed to roam freely throughout the U.S., and all we have to go on that they’ll show up to their asylum hearing – whenever that may be – is their word. And though the overwhelming majority of these asylum seekers (most of their claims are bogus) simply want to come here to work hard and obey our laws, scattered among them are drug and arms dealers, and human traffickers. If Harris and Walz win, the message will be clear: the dam has burst – come one, come all!
2. Rampant Crime: What I’m about to describe may not have reached your neighborhood yet, dear readers, but it’s very common in large and mid-sized cities coast to coast: Looting is rampant. Shoplifting doesn’t warrant arrests. Suckerpunching subway riders, if not pushing them onto the train tracks, is far from rare. I cannot fathom why, for instance, any New Yorker who rides the subway every day would ever vote Democratic, until the trains – and the streets above them – are once again safe, as they were for most of the City’s history, and most recently during the Giuliani-Bloomberg years.
3. Wokeness Run Amok: Wokeness – of which there are countless examples but space limits me from citing more of them – isn’t just bizarre anecdotes of teachers allowing students to bark and meow in class because the latter self-identify as household pets. It’s also, in some cases, about teachers enabling and assisting their young students to undergo gender transformations; get this: without parental consent or even notification. Warn your children, fellow parents!
4. Foreign Policy: Foreign policy is like a hot water heater. Everybody needs one, and if it breaks, we’re in deep trouble. But no one actively thinks about it until then. No one invites friends over to have coffee or drinks around the water heater amid compliments like “oh, it’s gorgeous!” We are the world’s sole remaining superpower, and there are nations out there – Russia and China most readily come to mind – perpetually scheming to topple us off our perch. For all those swooning at the prospect of a black woman president, have they really given thought to how she’d stand up to Putin and Xi, or do most Kamala fans not deem it relevant? Kamala’s no Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton, or Nikki Haley; she’s a lightweight.
5. The Economy: Unlike foreign policy, the economy’s not a hot water heater to the average American. Grocery and gas prices are very real, and inflation dropping simply means prices will no longer go up as quickly as they did a year or two ago – but they’re not coming down. This is the direct result of the Biden-Harris administration recklessly printing new money, and shutting down the Keystone XL project, which caused oil prices to go through the roof and financed Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

And you’ll risk all of this just to keep Mr. X from winning?