(Daily Signal)—We’ve heard it so often it has become a cliché: “This is the most important election of our lifetime.” But that doesn’t mean it’s not true.

I believe it really is, for one overarching reason: It’s the only election we can affect. The outcomes of 2020, 2016, and all previous campaigns are now in the rearview mirror. Nothing can be done about them. Not so regarding what happens on Nov. 5.

The people we choose to next lead our nation are up to us, and that makes this, like any future election, the most important election of our lifetimes. That said, the stakes are so high this time I can think of nearly a dozen more reasons.

Its effects may be more consequential than ever: Think of the lasting damage wrought by the elections of, say, Woodrow Wilson in 1912 or Franklin Roosevelt in1932, or the lasting benefits that came out of the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan.

Whether good or ill, we understand the hands we’ve been dealt in the past. In a world where we’re being told that borders are bad, killing babies is good, and men should be allowed in women’s locker rooms, the paradigm that will crystallize under the next administration could be even more game-changing.

The Constitution is under assault more than ever: For decades now, self-serving and irresponsible politicians have expanded the scope, breadth, and power of the federal government even as they provide lip service to constitutional constraints.

Today, however, the political Left is dispensing with all pretenses, taking open aim at the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They want to eliminate the Electoral College, reapportion the Senate by population rather than by state, and emasculate the First and Second Amendments, among other things.

Once those bulwarks are gone, there will be no stopping them.

Congress is weaker than ever: The administrative state has become a leviathan that too few in Congress have the courage to slay.

It has been nearly three decades since the legislative branch has followed the proper appropriations process, during which time executive branch agencies have been given a free hand in not only issuing rules that have the force of law, but to act as judge, jury, and executioner in their enforcement.

We must return to effective checks and balances.

The courts are assailed more than ever: The one branch of government operating somewhat as it should is the recently reconstituted Supreme Court, which is slowly reining in decades of abusive legislation from the bench.

A proper separation of powers, however, is unacceptable to the Left, and if it gets its way, it will expand and pack the court, removing the Constitution’s last line of defense.

We must prevent that from happening.

Today’s voters are more civically ignorant than ever: Those of us who are old enough benefited from civics education when we were growing up.

Most of today’s young voters have little understanding of our republic and the principles upon which it was founded. More likely, their understanding of our nation is based on historical misrepresentations like “A People’s History of the United States” and “The 1619 Project,” leading them to vote against their own long-term interests.

By the time they dismantle the institutions that protect them, it will be too late.

Our national debt is more gargantuan than ever: When more people are benefiting from government largesse than funding it, you have a problem, and our $35 trillion problem amounts to more than $275,000 in debt per household. And now that interest on the debt has itself for the first time topped $1 trillion, we’re headed to exponentially worse territory.

We must both grow the economy and limit spending to keep our ship from sinking.

Our borders are more porous than ever: America is a nation of immigrants, but a nation isn’t a nation without borders. Untold millions of illegal immigrants have been pouring across our borders, exacerbating drug abuse, crime, and human trafficking—to say nothing of stressing our already stretched safety net.

Immigrants who follow the rules are welcome in America, but those who won’t must no longer be allowed in.

Assimilation is weaker than ever: The greater the number of immigrants, the greater the need for effective assimilation. America has always been a melting pot, but those who wish to see our common bonds weakened would exchange E Pluribus Unum for E Pluribus Conflictus.

We can’t allow our culture to become any more balkanized.

Drugs are deadlier than ever: When I was a kid in high school, marijuana was mild, the cost of cocaine put it out of reach, and we went to the convenience store to get a Big Gulp.

Today, powerful, addictive weed is legally available on every corner, and fentanyl can be bought for as little as 50 cents a pill. We have a drug-induced death epidemic that must be stopped.

Weapons of war are deadlier than ever: The world has always been a dangerous place, but the possibility of global destruction is fewer than 100 years old. Today, not only are we seeing frightening advances in conventional weaponry (e.g., hypersonic missiles and deadly drones), but entirely new kinds of weaponry (e.g., directed energy and genetic weapons). We must continually enhance our ability to defend ourselves.

The world is more dangerous than ever: There are hot wars raging in Europe and the Middle East, either of which could easily expand to engulf the region or the world. And while most of our adversaries are rational, not wishing to die any more than we do, some consider martyrdom an honor.

We need a foreign policy with teeth that balances diplomacy with deterrence.

That’s a dozen reasons, and I suspect you can think of many more. None of the candidates are ideal, and no administration will be perfect. But the ratchet of government excess has for decades been turning leftward. If we’re ever to reverse its direction, we first must do what we can to halt it.

That’s why this is the most important election of our lifetimes.