The 2024 presidential race has taken on the feel of a wobbly, head-spinning carnival ride — like maybe a Ferris wheel hastily erected on the county fairgrounds by an itinerant crew that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

Hmmmm. Where was this bolt supposed to go? Ah, don’t worry — just hop on. It’ll be fine.

But hey, wait a minute. We’ve got to get this right. We live in dangerous times; the 2024 election is going to set the course for our future. For once, I agree with Joe Biden, at least in principle — we’re in a battle for the soul of America.

In little more than a month, we saw former President Donald Trump rise from the ashes of 2020 and take a commanding lead in this year’s presidential race, and then miraculously dodge an assassin’s bullet by a fraction of an inch. Meanwhile, we watched the Democrats’ election prospects implode as they belatedly pushed the aging and stumbling Biden aside and moved the unpopular Vice President Kamala Harris to the top of the ticket. Then, poof! — a flood of campaign contributions (over $300 million in Trump-hating cash), a full-on media swoon, and the GOP’s once-insurmountable lead went up in smoke. Suddenly, it’s anyone’s race.

With mail-in voting just weeks away, voters no doubt are wondering which comeback miracle to believe and which presidential candidate to support. But frankly, I don’t think it’s all that complicated.

Cutting through the noise, the compelling reality stares us in the face: Our nation is in deep trouble. Most Americans believe that we are in dire need of a major course change. Our first priorities:

1. The U.S. economy: We must reverse the crippling inflation that has crushed Middle America.

2. Border security: We must stop the flood of illegal immigration that has so far allowed tens of millions of unvetted residents into our country, and with them a crisis-level fentanyl epidemic, human trafficking, and violent crime.

3. Foreign policy: Our projection of American interests abroad is inconsistent and unclear; our allies are not sure they can count on us, and our potential adversaries do not fear us.

4. Safe streets: Our great American cities are becoming unlivable, with violent crime on the rise, rampant theft, reduced police presence, cashless bail, and endless protests that are not “mainly peaceful.”

Behind them, many other knotty problems beg to be addressed: unaffordable and ineffective climate change actions, government mandates for electric vehicles unwanted by the car-buying public, the war on fossil fuels, biological males competing against women — the list goes on.

Although the media would prefer to treat the 2024 election as a personality contest, it’s not that at all. This is our one critically important opportunity to empower a new leadership team to put our country back on track. So, the central question remains: Which candidate will deliver it?

We already know Donald Trump. He was our president for four years, and despite the nonsensical warnings about “dictatorship” and “stolen democracy,” most American voters made up their minds about him long ago. In the 2020 presidential election, he received 74 million votes, 11 million more than he did in 2016 — a meaningful indicator of public confidence.

Following his brush with death, Trump showed glimpses of refreshing restraint. At times he seemed downright presidential. Unfortunately, the last-minute emergence of his new opponent seems to have awakened the old, crude Trump. Now he seems to think that if he can just conjure up enough sufficiently nasty insults, all will be well. It won’t. For Trump to have any chance of electoral success, he must stop reminding undecided voters why they are uncomfortable with him.

Predicting how a President Kamala Harris might lead is another matter entirely. So far, she is offering no hint as to how she plans to address the issues listed above. Moreover, she has casually abandoned large swaths of long-held policy positions that might prove awkward for a serious presidential contender. Her team advises that she no longer opposes fracking, she’s now tough on crime, she doesn’t want to defund the police, she does not plan to dismantle ICE, and she no longer advocates Medicare for All. On her many other far-left views, we’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, she’s doing her best to redefine herself as the sensible, centrist Kamala, hoping that we’ll forget about the old one.

Perhaps the strongest indicator that the old Kamala is alive and well is her choice of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate. Ideologically, Harris and Walz seem joined at the hip.

As one example, Minnesota was ground zero for the hundreds of violent George Floyd riots in the summer of 2020. Not only did Walz stand by idly as casualties mounted and businesses burned, but he seemed to justify the violence as therapeutic for the aggrieved protesters. At the same time, then-Senator Kamala Harris was spearheading an initiative to raise bond for arrested protesters, allowing them to get back on the streets to rejoin the chaos.

And so, the 2024 voting calculus is quite simple. Those who are content with the condition and trajectory of our nation can logically vote to keep the current team in power. Joe Biden is stepping aside, but his VP will surely pick up where he left off — “finishing the job,” as he promised when campaigning.

And for those who recognize the urgent need for a reset, the reality is similarly clear — Harris-Walz is a nonstarter. For them, former President Donald J. Trump, warts and all, is the only sensible choice, although it’s still up to him to rise above the noise and earn their votes.

No, it’s not really complicated at all.