There's an old saying that goes, "A conservative is a liberal who's just been mugged." Now, things are a little more complex than that. For one thing, plenty of people have been conservatives or libertarians all along (me), while others have shifted views over time. 

There are as many reasons for a change of opinion as there are people, but it's sad beyond description when that reason is the loss of a child. But that's what happened to Dawn Allen, who lost her son to a fentanyl overdose, and who is now listening more closely to former President Donald Trump's tough talk on the border:

Dawn Allen wasn’t just a voting booth Democrat — she knocked on doors and donated money, including to President Joe Biden. 

But after her son died from fentanyl poisoning last year, she grew frustrated by what she viewed as Biden’s hands-off approach to the opioid crisis. Now she says she won’t vote for a Democrat, and she finds herself more in line with the candidate who has focused sharply on the deadly fentanyl epidemic: former President Donald Trump.

“It feels like a really bad breakup,” the 47-year-old mother of three other children said from her home in a Chicago suburb. “I’m really, really hurt.”

This is heartbreaking. Dawn Allen's son won't be carrying on her family's legacy, and it's because of a pernicious drug that is flowing into our country across the southern border by the carload.

Now, the mom says she's starting to see some sense in what Trump is saying, the NBC News piece, linked above, reports: 

Trump speaks about fentanyl frequently; Harris less so.

“We’ll bust up and dismantle the gangs, savage criminal networks, and bloodthirsty cartels. And we will stop the fentanyl,” Trump said during a recent campaign appearance in Michigan. 

Trump has called for expanding the death penalty for drug dealers, using the military to target Mexican cartels and halting illegal border crossings to stop the importation of the drug.

That first line in that quote is something of an understatement; Kamala Harris has barely spoken about the fentanyl crisis at all. And isn't she supposed to be in charge of something to do with the border? Finding "root causes" of the border invasion, and so on? Sure seems like someone would want to spend some time looking into the massive profit motive of smuggling illegal drugs as a cause.

See Related: How Many More Bodies Will Be Buried Before Somebody Stops Biden’s Illegal Invasion at the Border?

Family Sues LA Child Welfare Office for $65 Million After Toddler Dies of Fentanyl Overdose

How many more people are being mugged by reality? How many parents have lost children to drugs, gang wars, or just lawless thugs in carjackings or robberies? Is this really what it takes to get people to see some sense?

Our hearts go out to Dawn Allen. I hope one day she can recover from her terrible loss and remember only the good things about her son. We go through life knowing we will lose our parents; we go through life knowing there is a possibility we will lose a spouse. But you're not supposed to lose your children. That's not how these things are supposed to work; our children are supposed to remain after we are gone, to carry on. 

 And, no one man, not even a president, is a panacea; no one man can completely fix the illegal drug problem or the illegal immigration problem. But it's a sure thing that anything is better than nothing, which is what the Biden/Harris administration has been doing.

When people go to the polls in November, they need to remember Dawn Allen's story.