A View from My Porch: A Most Consequential Election, Part 1

This View considers the imminent midterm election of November 3, 2026, which I believe will be the most consequential federal election of my lifetime, as U.S. voters determine the political alignment of Congress. These lawmakers will then play a significant role in constructing guardrails and finally placing some controls on this president’s policies and actions for the remainder of his term ending at noon EST on January 20, 2029.

I intend to devote an additional View to this federal election and then a third to Connecticut’s, God willing and if Madam Editor agrees. I begin with a domestic lay-of-the-land and review what an ostensibly unprincipled president, supported by a cowed, look-the-other-way Republican Congress, has imposed on the United States. These are a few of my troubling memories of an unusual president and his administration, which I feel should remain in our collective consciousness as we approach Election Day. His unchecked domestic and foreign policies have thrown the nation into economic and societal chaos. He has corrupted the Department of Justice in his campaign of revenge and retribution, as well as the Federal Communications Commission in his battles with news commentators and journalists who question his actions, comedians and satirists who lampoon his behavior, and the television networks that broadcast them.

On September 18, Trump proclaimed on Truth Social that he had banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House for what he called their “constant reporting FAKE NEWS” and also warned that “other outlets” would follow but did not specify which.

Congress has allowed this president to levy tariffs and initiate trade wars at his whim, which have clearly resulted in the high prices that have burdened American consumers. Earlier this month in Dallas, Trump called America’s “affordability crisis” a fake Democrat-created issue and claimed that “food prices and almost every other item is rapidly going down,” even as consumer prices continue to rise. Absurdly, Trump has variously declared that the concept of an affordability crisis is a “scam,” a “hoax,” and a “con job” perpetrated by his political enemies.

The latest consensus from multiple pollsters places Trump’s approval in the low- to mid-30% range, and his disapproval in the high 50s. The numbers are among his lowest since the beginning of his second term, and reflect sustained economic and policy dissatisfaction, despite strong loyalty from his Republican base. Quinnipiac reports 33% approval and 59% disapproval; The Economist reports 35% approval and 61% disapproval.

Regrettably, we’ve lost the trust of our allies, and so Trump’s America is no longer “Leader of the Free World.” (See “A View from My Porch: On Surrendering the Mantle of ‘Leader of the Free World,’ Part I.”)

The 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal: Formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Iran Nuclear Deal was a historic agreement negotiated during the Obama Administration between Iran and the U.N. Security Council’s five permanent members: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China, with the addition of Germany. Negotiations concluded on July 14, 2015 in Vienna, after months of multilateral discussions that began in late 2013 in Geneva. Per the JCPOA, Iran will not pursue nuclear weapons and will allow continuous monitoring of its compliance in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. This nation agreed to relinquish nearly all of its enriched uranium stockpile (97%) and 70% of its centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium to weapons grade. It also agreed to stop plutonium production and to dismantle its plutonium reactor. The agreement went into effect on January 16, 2016, after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verified that Iran had implemented key nuclear-related steps. Different parts of the agreement were scheduled to last between 10 and 25 years. However, during his 2016 campaign, Trump made renegotiation of the JCPOA one of his main foreign affairs campaign promises, saying at a rally that it would “be a totally different deal” if he won.

Predictably, Trump did not renegotiate, but instead, announced on May 8, 2018 that he was pulling the United States out of the deal, and stated that it failed to contain the regime’s nuclear “ambitions,” and claimed that the agreement was “defective at its core” and failed to protect U.S. national security by leaving Iran too much latitude and rewarding its “malign” activity. He continued: “It didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace, and it never will,” though at the time, the predominant view was that Iran was implementing its nuclear-related commitments, and over the 28 months that the deal had been in effect, the IAEA said that it found that Iran committed no violations, aside from some minor infractions that were rectified.

Of course, Iran stopped complying with international inspectors, expanded enrichment activities, bringing it closer to the capability of producing a bomb, and reduced the visibility of those activities, making them nearly impossible to monitor.

On November 5, 2018, the White House announced that “all U.S. sanctions that were lifted under the ‘disastrous’ Iran nuclear deal will be fully reimposed. President Trump will continue to stand up to the Iranian regime’s aggression and fully enforce the reimposed sanctions.”

The Administration’s Activities in Advance of Hostilities in Iran: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth launched a sweeping purge of the U.S. military’s highest ranks, targeting top leadership across multiple branches of the armed forces, including combat-tested commanders with operational experience in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Gulf War and other major U.S. military campaigns. Trump removed officers who served during the Biden Administration, firing the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and the head of the U.S. Coast Guard, Admiral Linda Fagan. He also pushed out admirals and generals, and fired civilian staff in the Pentagon. This year alone, Hegseth blocked the promotions of 40 officers, predominantly people of color or women, who have been through rigorous, systematic military vetting during their service. On April 2, Hegseth removed Army Chief of Staff General Randy George, along with two other Army generals. Removal has not stopped at top military personnel, but reached top civilian posts, with Hegseth firing Navy Secretary John Phelan on April 22. There may have been a bit of opposition to launching the first strikes and disagreement over initiating a ground operation in Iran. Hegseth’s behavior isn’t new, and it is a significant characteristic of Trump’s administrations: the systematic replacement of independent voices with political loyalists. So, this war was really a Trump/Hegseth amateur hour event.

The Undeclared, Illegal Trump/Hegseth War: On the evening of June 21, 2025, the United States carried out air- and sea-launched strikes on three nuclear facilities in Iran in an operation that U.S. officials have said was “very narrowly tailored” to “destroy or severely degrade Iran’s nuclear program.” Iran’s Red Crescent Society reported that 24 of Iran’s 32 provinces were hit on the first day, with more than 200 deaths and 700 injuries reported. Iranian officials said that at least 120 schoolchildren and 26 teachers died in a missile strike on Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released the following statement on Trump’s illegal ordering of strikes on the three nuclear sites without Congressional authorization: “Donald Trump, a weak and dangerously reckless president, has put the United States on a path to a war in the Middle East that the country does not want, the law does not allow, and our security does not demand … I’ve been briefed on the intelligence – there is no evidence Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States.” Nonetheless, on Sept. 20, 2025, Trump stated that his June airstrikes had obliterated Iran’s nuclear capability and totally annihilated their enriched uranium, although his claim was disputed by U.S. Intelligence and independent experts who say the damage was significant but not total. Trump’s claim of “obliteration” aside, this Feb. 28, the United States and Israel launched a coordinated, large-scale air and missile campaign inside Iran that included strikes on military infrastructure and Iran’s leadership.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top officials were killed, and unsurprisingly sparked a string of retaliatory incidents that expanded the conflict beyond Iran’s borders, and precipitated strikes against Israel and missile and drone counter‑attacks across the region. Iran also asserted control over the Strait of Hormuz, the key waterway for global oil and natural gas supplies from the Gulf. In response to the death of the Supreme Leader, Trump actually said, “We want to be involved in the process of choosing the person who is going to lead Iran into the future, so we don’t have to go back every five years and do this again and again.” Clearly, American forces were confronting an Iranian regime that is more resilient than Trump’s March 31 estimate: “We’ll be leaving very soon,” ​he told reporters in the Oval Office, and added that the exit could take place “within two weeks, maybe two weeks, maybe three.”

Outcomes: The war has resulted in crippling increases in the price of gasoline and diesel in America. Current U.S. Department of Energy data show that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) contains 298.7 million barrels. The last time the level was below 300 million barrels was in the early 1980s. The drop is not a surprise, as the Trump Administration announced in March that it would release 172 million barrels from the reserve over the course of 120 days. Iran has been able to limit oil shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, putting a crunch on global oil supplies. The Biden administration also released 180 million barrels in 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent oil prices spiking. With experts estimating it could take up to four years to replenish stocks of weapons, Trump has responded: “We have a lot. I’d like to have more, to be honest, but so much was given to Ukraine by Biden.”

The first week of Trump’s war in Iran cost American taxpayers over $6 billion, according to Pentagon sources cited by The New York Times, and the ballooning cost of the war could approach $100 billion, depending on how long it stretches. According to a recently released report by the Congressional Budget Office, the war could cost about $2 to $3 billion per month for as long as it continues and could rise when there are “tit-for-tat” exchanges of fire with Iran. (A “tit-for-tat” exchange of fire is a pattern of reciprocal actions, where one side responds to an opponent’s action with an equivalent or similar action, creating a cycle of mutual retaliation.) Trump responded to the surging gas prices as a small “price to pay” for his war in Iran while speaking to a crowd of supporters on Sept. 16 in North Carolina. “It’s a very inexpensive price to pay for what we’ve done. Remember that. It’s a little more. Frankly, even if it was a lot more,” he said.

I have been critical of President Trump in this View. However, I hold the utmost respect for his constitutional position and recognize that he has been entrusted with the highest duties in America’s governance: “to faithfully execute the office and to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.”

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.