There will be no shortage of important issues in the 2024 presidential election — the crisis at the southern border, the Dobbs decision, freedom for Ukraine and war in the Middle East, just for starters — but it may be the choice between chaos and calm that will move many voters.

Republican Nikki Haley sensed it. As she struggled to hang on in the Republican primaries, she made the certain chaos of another four years with Donald Trump in the White House a core message of her campaign. Haley told CNN the country “can’t go through four more years of chaos.”

“I don’t want my kids to live like this. People are tired of the division and the chaos. We can’t go through four more years of chaos. We won’t survive it.”

Trump himself has made it clear that if he wins another four years, the chaos that is his campaign platform will be his governing platform. He has promised many of his supporters that he will trash institutions and even scores, for him and for them. For anyone who feels put upon and powerless, Trump’s vengeance is to be their vengeance.

On the campaign trail a year ago, he told his supporters, “I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

When Trump wanted to kill a tough bipartisan border security bill, he deployed the “chaos caucus,” a small group of ultra-conservative House members. Trump said, “A border deal now would be another gift to the radical left Democrats. They need it politically.” So, the chaos continues on our border.

In November, The Washington Post reported Trump has been planning his revenge on some of his own first-term appointees if he is reelected. Former Chief of Staff Gen. John F. Kelly, former Attorney General William Barr, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley and a list of as-yet-unnamed FBI and Justice Department officials top his list.

Trump is promising international chaos, too. At a South Carolina rally, Trump renewed his attacks on NATO, claiming that he told an ally nation that unless it spent more on defense, he would “encourage” Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” with it.

Compared to all that, President Joe Biden is boring. In the days right after the 2020 election, Michael Grunwald, writing in Politico Magazine, quoted Trump calling Biden “the most boring human being I’ve ever seen.” Grunwald added that “a majority of the country seemed OK with that.”

“After four years of presidential rage-tweeting, name-calling, gaslighting, race-baiting and all-around norm-breaking, an exhausted electorate decided this week that it was ready to return to politics as usual.”

And after Biden’s first year as president, Politico reported, “It was a key theme of Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, unstated but powerful, and a vivid contrast with the public-train-wreck incumbent: If elected, he was going to be boring. Promise kept.”

The big issues still loom large for most voters. Both candidates are old, so that should be a stand-off. Women are likely to continue to vote in droves to protect their right to make their own health decisions. Battles will continue over the border crisis and whether America should stand for freedom in Ukraine.

But very much like the last time these candidates met, a number of voters will be choosing between bombast and boring, between chaos and calm.

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