A View from My Porch: A Most Consequential Election, Part 2

I begin this View by reaffirming the vital importance of the Nov. 3 midterm elections, when our votes will determine the political alignment of Congress and play a significant role in finally placing some controls on this president’s actions.

Rules of the Road: Members of Congress elected in November do not take office immediately. The outgoing Congress, including members who lost their seats, remains fully in office and can still pass legislation, confirm nominations and conduct business until the new 120th Congress is sworn in at noon on Jan.  3. This president remains in office with full presidential powers until noon on Jan. 20, 2029, which coincides with the inauguration of the 48th president of the United States, who will be elected on Nov. 7, 2028. There are about two years and two months between Election Day and the inauguration of a new president. Heaven help us!

I’ll now consider several of the “highlights” of this administration to stress why controls need to be placed around this president’s actions and how those actions contrast with how our system of government is supposed to work.

The Trump Economy: Since his inauguration, Trump’s net worth has skyrocketed, and as of early 2026, economists indicated that Trump has generated between $1.4 billion and $4 billion in revenue during his second term, largely driven by business ventures, international licensing and Trump family cryptocurrency projects. According to Forbes, his “crypto” ventures added an estimated $2 billion to his wealth in 10 months, although, at the same time, about one million investors in a Trump “crypto” scheme suffered almost $3.8 billion in losses as their volatile crypto holdings tanked in value.

On the other hand:

• According to the latest U.S. Treasury data, the national debt has increased to about $40.25 trillion as of Oct. 7. This is a record high.
• Gasoline and diesel prices have reached historic highs, with heating oil likely to soon follow, saddling Americans with a massive energy bill that continues to mount as the conflict with Iran drags on.
• According to a cost tracker published by The Watson School of International and Public Affairs at Brown University, U.S. consumers have paid an extra $100.9 billion on gasoline and diesel alone between the war’s start at the end of February and September. That amounts to $770 per U.S. household – a figure that will likely increase as fuel costs remain elevated.
• Trump recently announced via social media that the U.S. will begin importing significant amounts of diesel fuel from Russia after an agreement was reached with Russian President Vladimir Putin. This arrangement is an extraordinary reversal of U.S. laws banning Russian oil imports that have not been changed by Congress. Any potential impact will depend on how quickly Russian diesel reaches American markets and whether the pledged volumes materialize.

Iran War Costs:

• The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report in September indicating that by Aug. 1, Trump’s war with Iran had cost nearly $40 billion “without including the cost of damage to hundreds of buildings and structures at U.S. bases in the region.”
• Costs will continue to rise at an estimated $2 to $3 billion each month the conflict endures.
• Replenishing the munitions stockpiles depleted by the war could take five years or longer, suggesting that the true cost of the conflict will not be known until the Pentagon rebuilds the inventories and restores the capabilities that existed before the war.
• A separate report from the Defense Department’s inspector general, released a day before the CBO’s, estimated that the cost of repairing “physical damage from Iranian strikes” to U.S. diplomatic facilities in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates at nearly $184 million.
• The inspector general also determined that the military had spent $22.3 billion on munitions and lost about $3.7 billion in aircraft and equipment.

A Rogue Nation: I firmly believe that Trump’s trade wars, his pointless criticism of institutions like NATO and the U.N., his sudden withdrawals from multinational organizations and agreements negotiated during earlier administrations and his absurd rhetoric to annex other sovereign countries have convinced our allies that America is no longer a dependable partner. 

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., described Trump’s February attacks on Iran as a “military action to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program [that] was totally unnecessary. We had a diplomatic deal to do that. It was working until Trump – against the advice of all his advisors – tore it to shreds. Trump willfully precipitated this crisis.”

Trump ordered a series of at least 26 strikes against Venezuelan civilian fishing boats in September 2025, resulting in at least 95 deaths, but claimed that the strikes were part of a campaign to dismantle “narco-terrorist” networks allegedly tied to Venezuelan criminal groups. Our former allies’ change in attitude was demonstrated when he petitioned France, Japan, South Korea, Britain and NATO to send warships and mine countermeasure systems to support his attempt to reopen the Strait of Hormuz; and they refused.

Trump wears his boogeymen and women on his sleeve, and may suddenly wander from a script or an answer in progress with an irrelevant rant about Biden, Barack Hussein Obama (it’s always all three names) or the Nobel Prize Committee. Incredibly, after being passed over again for the prize last week, Trump went on a lengthy tirade denigrating the recipient, Navanethem (“Navi”) Pillay, and raging that “this is an indelible stain on the country of Norway, and those people that made such a disgraceful and embarrassing decision. The Nobel Peace Prize has been forever discredited by a handful of radical ideologues who are anti-democracy and really enemies of civilization.” He finished with the threat: “We will not forget, Norway.”

Domestic Military Operations: At home, Trump ordered deployments of National Guard troops to six Democrat-led American cities in 2025, despite the opposition of state and local governments. Deployments began in Los Angeles in June 2025 and expanded to Washington, D.C., in August before he also authorized an expansion into Memphis, Tennessee, and Portland, Oregon, in September. Plans were underway for Chicago and possibly New York, Baltimore, San Francisco, and Oakland, California. His unrestrained and out-of-control Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have stormed our cities, made indiscriminate arrests, withheld the constitutional right of due process and killed and injured unarmed Americans. 

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reportedly considered sending the 82nd Airborne Division, an elite U.S. Army strike force that has been deployed to combat zones during World War II, Vietnam and Afghanistan, to Portland to “quell protests that Trump had characterized as ‘lawless mayhem.’”

Trump has “suggested” that the FBI take action against senators, judges, former President Joe Biden and members of his family, and even non-governmental organizations, in his pursuit of revenge, retaliation and retribution against an ever-growing list of his political enemies. 

He frequently insults and threatens female journalists and has banned media companies from the White House.

Trump’s Speech before the U.N. General Assembly: To a large extent, Trump’s 40-minute speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 22 was the same old Trump rally speech. He began it with a string of boasts: “Our economy is the envy of the world; our military is the most powerful on earth; our technology is second to none, and we are leading in virtually everything.” But then he got confrontational. Trump defended his decision to launch the war against Iran, accusing the country of seeking to erect a defensive missile arsenal before making a “mad dash to a nuclear bomb.”

He said, “We are reasserting American power, including American military power where necessary in our region and around the world to create a safer future for all of us.” Trump began to wrap up with “I have a big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before? Maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world? Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?”

The United Nations Rebuke: A week after Trump’s speech, the U.N. delivered an almost unanimous rebuke of a Trump administration move that was called “unacceptable in conscience and indefensible in reason.”  

The Trump Administration had imposed visa sanctions on Palestinian officials, accusing them of seeking to “internationalize the Israeli‑Palestinian conflict,” which barred President Abbas from visiting the U.S. for the U.N. General Assembly. In response, U.N. member states voted 152‑3 to allow Abbas to participate virtually, rejecting the U.S. move. The vote demonstrates the widening distance between Washington and some of its closest allies. 

My next View considers the Connecticut election, when voters will select the governor and the members of the executive team, which includes lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of the state, comptroller, treasurer and members of the Connecticut General Assembly.

About the author: Tom Gotowka spent his career in healthcare. He will sit on the Navy side at the Army/Navy football game. He always sits on the crimson side at any Harvard/Yale contest. He enjoys reading historic speeches and considers himself a scholar of the period from FDR through JFK. A child of AM Radio, he probably knows the lyrics of every rock and roll or folk song published since 1960.