There are two ways of looking at the midterm elections, now just a week away.

From one angle, it’s a simple referendum on the issues and politicians of the day.

From another, it involves a far deeper conflict of visions (as Thomas Sowell puts it): socialism vs. capitalism, intrusive vs. limited government, and the destruction of time-honored institutions and traditions vs. their preservation and renewal.

Rarely in American history have the two parties been so far apart — or the choice between them so stark.

In brief, Islamist-sympathizing socialism is on the ballot against free-market capitalism and American exceptionalism.

The new Islamist-allied socialist Democratic Party is confident, largely because the party holding the White House rarely gains House seats in the midterms.

Pundits point to President Donald Trump’s under-40% approval rating, the persistently high price of gas and public uncertainty over the Iran war.

But the choice goes much further: Voters face a “deep” midterm election that will help determine the nation’s very existence.

The new Democratic agenda is not about lowering gas prices.

Americans are being asked to hand Congress to what has become the most radical major party in US history, as socialists and neo-communists believe they can finally win statewide races.

That would mean endless lawfare: If Democrats win the House, they’ll spend the next two years impeaching, investigating and hounding Trump, his administration and his family, paralyzing the remainder of his presidency.

It would mean an end to the effort to denuclearize Iran, even though the US has nearly destroyed the regime’s theocratic apparatus along with much of the country’s nuclear, military, industrial and economic infrastructure.

The Democrats would simply withdraw, and accept Tehran’s word that it will no longer threaten the Gulf states or Israel and cease its decades-long support for terrorist proxies.

On energy, the left has vowed to end the production of natural gas, diesel and gasoline as quickly as possible.

Voters need only look at the once robust British and German economies, now struggling, to see where that would lead.

There, gasoline is currently around $9 a gallon — a great thing for Democratic Socialists who see high fuel prices as the best way to cool the planet and remain in power.

On immigration, the left wants to dismantle border enforcement and return to the Biden-era peak of 10,000-plus illegal entries per day.

Voters may be disturbed by ICE detentions, but they should remember a high-profile ICE presence was only necessary because Biden effectively eliminated the border.

The Democrats will never allow immigration to become entirely legal, meritocratic, diverse and manageable — because doing so would cut off their supply of future constituents.

The DEI-driven idea that race, outward appearance, gender and sexual preference are essential rather than incidental to one’s identity is a central doctrine of the contemporary left.

Should the Democrats regain power, expect de facto nullification of the bans against racial tribalism found in federal law and Supreme Court rulings.

Finally, only a quarter-century after 9/11, Islamism is somehow on the ballot.

After Oct. 7, the Democratic Party embraced the Islamist/socialist view that sees radical Islam as not so radical after all, but a legitimate and indeed preferable alternative to democratic Israel — and increasingly to Western values and laws.

The apparently new leftist-Islamist alliance is actually not so new.

We see its dividends now in a burning Paris: Decades ago, the same political partnership destroyed the Shah’s regime and ushered in nearly 50 years of theocratic tyranny in Iran.

Why would we vote into office what European voters are now desperately trying to eject?

We already know what will happen if the new Democrats take power.

After all, they’re only promising to do to America what socialists have already done to now-floundering Europe, Canada and California.

Before the election, voters should ask themselves why more than two million Americans each year are fleeing the blue-state socialist model.

They know the answer: On taxes, regulations, cost of living, housing affordability, crime and more, red and purple states consistently outperform blue states.

Americans already vote with their feet — and should remember those differences when they cast their ballots.

They should also consider why the current crop of Islamist-adjacent socialists always need to cleanse their pasts.

Is there a Republican counterpart to James Talarico, who scrambles to retract remarks describing capitalism as an “oppressive system” that needs to be “dismantled,” or suggesting that “white skin” confers immunity to the “virus of racism”?

Does any GOP candidate remotely resemble Darializa Avila Chevalier, who called the United States “a f–king disgrace”?

Could anyone imagine Republican candidates apologizing for terrorism in the manner of Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, who responded to a cowardly Islamist attack on a synagogue with “Hurt people do hurt people”?

Of course not.

That’s why voters must treat this midterm election as the deep choice that it is.

Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness.