Many of us let out a sigh of relief Tuesday when we learned that Kamala Harris, the first of her name, queen of the cackle and the trans men, lady of the seven accents and protector of the senile, had chosen a pudgy, pale party apparatchik from the northern wilds to be her running mate. Commentary immediately turned to how stupid this was, given the competence of the relatively moderate Josh Shapiro, the diminutive governor of battleground Pennsylvania, who would have not been the first Jewish running mate but surely could have become the first Jewish vice president.

And let us be clear, while most of us eschew Shapiro’s politics, the thought of a Jew being a heartbeat away from the most powerful office in all the world must have stirred some understandable degree of pride.

And yet, I reject the idea that Shapiro was the gravest threat to the Trump campaign. Though his value in Pennsylvania cannot be overstated — the Keystone State was critical to the Trump victory eight years ago over she whose name must not be spoken — let me spell out the scenario that would have terrified me far more.

What if, instead of Shapiro or commissar Tim Walz, space cadet Harris had decided to beam Mark Kelly aboard her campaign bus?