At the same time in 2016, on these same opinion pages, I wrote that “the Republican presidential primaries produced a candidate totally unworthy of our noble history.” I believed it then, and I still believe it today. Donald Trump lacks the self-control, character and skills expected of a President of the United States.

Earlier this year, I publicly and enthusiastically supported Trump’s primary opponents and proudly served on Nikki Haley’s leadership committee in Minnesota. The Republican Party and the nation would be better off if the GOP nominated her – or any of the other leading contenders for that matter – to lead our presidential ticket.

In 2016, my conservative beliefs did not allow me to vote in the general election for Trump (I wrote in Paul Ryan). And although I had hoped not to have to vote for Trump this year, the deep unease I feel about the difficult trajectory the country finds itself on will force me to do so.

The simple truth is that if elected president, Kamala Harris will not only perpetuate the unacceptable political status quo of the Biden-Harris administration, she will only make things worse. She has made clear that she finds no fault in the actions or agenda of the current divisive and ineffective White House, and has been too vague in her recent attempts to abandon her former far-left positions, suggesting that his political past could very well be his presidential past. prologue. It therefore seems that a President Harris would not govern with more relevance than the current one, but with an even more aggressive progressive tendency. America simply cannot afford four years of this.

It begins with the crisis on America’s porous southern border. Thanks to the Harris boss’s lax immigration policies, more than 10 million migrants have entered the United States illegally since Trump left office — a number greater than the individual population of all but 10 states. United is a wonderful and generous country – the greatest in the world – and we must and must continue to welcome legal immigrants into our country and into our communities with open arms. Even though Trump’s demeaning rhetoric on migrants is shameful, we cannot afford to provide for the millions of unverified people who cross our border year after year, nor should we be forced to accept the danger that this entails. This lawless approach in which Mexican drug cartels thrive and Americans suffer (fentanyl overdoses are now the leading cause of death among 18- to 45-year-olds) represents a clear and present danger and existential threat to state sovereignty. -United and must be taken into account. stopped immediately. The Biden-Harris administration has failed to do so. Nor would a Harris-Walz version. I think Trump will.

Another troubling predictor of how President Harris would lead is his selection of Minnesota’s Tim Walz as his running mate. Instead of choosing a sensible, moderate second-in-command such as Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro or Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, the vice president was drawn to one of the most liberal governors in the country, sending a strong signal about how his white ship is on board. House will act ideologically. Walz’s record here in Minnesota is financially reckless, extreme and unimpressive: historic increases in government spending, even more taxes despite colossal budget surpluses, rampant waste and fraud in his state agencies, rising crime rates and declining student test scores, provisions for driver’s licenses and health care and college benefits for illegal immigrants, and the promotion of radical cultural initiatives such as eliminating bipartisan, common-sense restrictions that Minnesota had once written in its books concerning late-term abortions and demanding that anti-capitalist, anti-American authorities that ethnic studies based on identity politics be taught in all public school classes. And although Walz has promised to bring Minnesota together, he flatly refuses to work with Republicans on anything. That all of this impressed Harris is a prediction of how deeply progressive and partisan she would be as president.