Danger and uselessness are usually treated as opposites. A dangerous president is one who is too effective, too capable, too determined; a useless one is merely a disappointment, a man who fails without consequence. The alarming possibility, and the one the record now supports, is that the two are the same fact. The danger of Donald Trump is not that he is powerful. It is that he is powerful and incompetent, and the combination does not cancel out. It compounds. The incompetent exercise of vast power is how wars are started, economies are damaged, and institutions are broken. This essay sets down the evidence for both claims, because they are one claim: a president who cannot govern is not a harmless president. He is the most dangerous kind.

The War

The war with Iran began on February 28, 2026, with Operation Epic Fury, a joint American-Israeli campaign of roughly nine hundred strikes in twelve hours (Reuters, 2026). Seven months later, the conflict is a costly stalemate, and none of the three objectives the president stated at the outset has been met: Iran’s nuclear program has not been ended, Iran has not stopped striking its neighbors, and the conditions for Iranians to topple their rulers were never created (Reuters, 2026a).

The human cost is documented. As of August 21, 2026, 18 American service members had been killed and 756 wounded in the war, a count the Pentagon itself has revised and re-categorized (Washington Post, 2026). The financial cost is estimated at roughly $40 billion by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, with an $87 billion supplemental request pending (CSIS, 2026; The Hill, 2026). The strategic cost is worse. The United States has burned through nearly 80 percent of its THAAD interceptors and roughly half its Patriot interceptors, and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has fallen to its lowest level since 1983 (CNN, 2026). Military leaders have reportedly advised the Secretary of Defense that prolonging large-scale operations is unsustainable (Washington Post, 2026a).

The war’s signature achievement is the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Vessel transits fell to six ships on September 2, a level with no peacetime precedent in the waterway’s tracked history, against a pre-war norm of dozens per day (CNN, 2026). The strait carries roughly a fifth of the world’s daily oil trade. Brent crude settled near $95 a barrel, up from about $65 at the start of the year, and the national average price of gasoline is $4.14 a gallon, against $3.19 a year earlier (Eastern Herald, 2026; CNN, 2026).

The president’s response to all of this was to call the war “small potatoes” (Al Jazeera, 2026). His vice president said, “I wouldn’t call this a war,” and declined to offer any timeline for its end (Democracy Now, 2026). A ceasefire agreed in June collapsed in July, and the pattern has been escalation, depletion, pause, escalation again (Noah Intelligence, 2026). The war is not being won. It is being managed, badly, until the midterms, which is why the president’s own aides are reportedly pushing to keep it quiet until November 3 (political.org, 2026).

The Record of Failure

The legislative record of the second term, twenty months in, consists of three laws of consequence: the Laken Riley Act, signed January 29, 2025; the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the single reconciliation package, signed July 4, 2025; and the GENIUS Act, the stablecoin framework, signed July 18, 2025 (NYT, 2025; NBC News, 2025; White House, 2025). The CLARITY Act, the crypto market-structure bill, passed the House in July 2025 and has been stalled in the Senate ever since; its cloture vote is set for September 15, and the White House has warned it will die unless seven Democrats vote yes (Reuters, 2026b). The SAVE Act, the voter-citizenship bill, passed the House in February 2026 and has not moved in the Senate (USA Today, 2026). There will be no second reconciliation bill: the president declined to push one, saying Republicans had already “secured everything they needed” (Taxathand, 2025).

The executive record is a study in judicial reversal. The IEEPA tariff program, the centerpiece of the administration’s economic policy, was struck down by the Supreme Court on February 20, 2026, in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, the first time in the modern era that the Court meaningfully constrained the emergency powers (SCOTUSblog, 2026). The administration’s response was to announce a new tariff regime the same day, under Section 122 of the Trade Act; the Court of International Trade struck that down on May 7, 2026, and it expired on schedule in July (CIT, 2026). A third regime, Section 301 forced-labor tariffs, took effect July 24 and is now being challenged, with a hearing set for September 30 (USTR, 2026). Three tariff regimes in eighteen months: two struck down, one in court.

The pattern extends beyond trade. The birthright-citizenship executive order was struck down by the Supreme Court on June 30, 2026, and its replacement was blocked by a preliminary injunction on September 2 (SCOTUSblog, 2026a; Fragomen, 2026). The voter-registration executive order was permanently blocked in January 2026, with the court noting that the Constitution gives states and Congress, not the president, the power to set federal election rules (Courthouse News, 2026). The ICC sanctions order has been blocked by at least three injunctions, with every federal court to rule finding it likely violates the First Amendment (ACLU, 2025). The $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, which could have paid January 6 defendants including those convicted of assaulting police, was announced in May, declared dead by the Justice Department in June, and indefinitely blocked by a judge who noted the president said he did not know whether it was eliminated (NBC News, 2026). The Alien Enemies Act invocation, the most aggressive use of executive power in the term, has resulted in no one being removed under the Act since March 15, 2025, and a contempt investigation of the administration is set for argument before the full D.C. Circuit on September 29 (Vladeck, 2026; Law360, 2026).

The staffing record is its own indictment. Seventeen inspectors general were fired in a late-night purge in January 2025, without the thirty-day congressional notice the law requires (AP, 2025). The Secretary of Defense shared real-time attack plans in a Signal group chat that included a journalist (The Atlantic, 2025). More than twenty generals, admirals, and civilian defense leaders have been fired or forced out, and more than eighty have had promotions blocked; the Army Secretary resigned in September after warning about the Secretary of Defense’s leadership, and a Republican senator called for the Secretary’s firing the same week (CBS News, 2026; NYT, 2026). Cabinet departures of Senate-confirmed officials are outpacing the first term’s pace (NBC News, 2026a).

The Economy

The economic record is the clearest demonstration that the danger and the uselessness are the same thing, because the president’s own promises supply the baseline. He promised to end inflation. Inflation is above target: CPI is running at 3.4 percent and the Fed’s preferred measure, PCE, at 3.7 percent, against a 2 percent target (BLS, 2026; BEA, 2026). He promised prosperity. Growth slowed to 1.5 percent annualized in the second quarter, and the labor market has been exceptionally weak: the twelve-month average payroll gain through August was just 31,000 jobs a month, with July initially reported as a decline (BEA, 2026a; BLS, 2026a). He promised to make America affordable. Gasoline is $4.14 a gallon, the 30-year mortgage averages 6.71 percent, and the ten-year Treasury yields 4.77 percent (Freddie Mac, 2026; Federal Reserve, 2026).

The human consequences are measurable in the sentiment data. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index fell to 51.7 in August, down 11 percent from a year earlier, a level historically associated with recessions (ABA Banking Journal, 2026). The Conference Board’s expectations index fell to 68.2, firmly in negative territory (Conference Board, 2026). The Federal Reserve, under a chair the president chose, is now seriously considering a rate hike at its September 15-16 meeting, with market odds near 66 percent, even as growth slows and hiring stalls (CNBC, 2026). The fiscal picture compounds it: the Congressional Budget Office projects a $1.9 trillion deficit for fiscal 2026 and debt reaching 120 percent of GDP by 2036, with the administration’s own reconciliation law adding $4.7 trillion to the deficits (CBO, 2026).

The Verdict

The political verdict is in, and it is unambiguous. Trump’s net approval rating is minus 19.5, near his all-time low, and worse than his own first-term reading at the same point, which was minus 11.6 (Silver Bulletin, 2026). Reuters/Ipsos measured his approval at 33 percent, his lowest ever in that poll, with 71 percent disapproving of his handling of the economy (Forbes, 2026). The University of Massachusetts found 32 percent approval, with only 25 percent saying he handles the Iran war well (UMass, 2026). His approval among Republicans has fallen from 89 to 75 percent since April 2025, and among his own 2024 voters it is down ten points (UMass, 2026).

The generic ballot tells the same story: Democrats lead by 6.3 to 6.6 points, among the widest Democratic leads since August 2018, a swing of more than five points since inauguration (USPollingData, 2026; Silver Bulletin, 2026a). The consensus House forecast shows Democrats favored to retake the chamber, with 208 seats solid for Democrats, 207 for Republicans, and twenty toss-ups (270toWin, 2026). The Senate is genuinely in play: Cook Political Report moved Texas and Iowa to toss-up in August, and the four decisive races, Alaska, Maine, Michigan, and Ohio, are all rated toss-ups, with Democrats leading in the most recent polls of each (Cook Political Report, 2026; MS NOW, 2026). A Democrat leads the Republican incumbent in Maine, 48 to 46. A former senator leads the appointed incumbent in Ohio, 53 to 45. A Democrat leads in Alaska, 51 to 49. A Democrat leads in Michigan, 47 to 43. Even in Texas, the Democratic nominee leads the Republican, 44.0 to 43.4 (Fox News, 2026; Political Wire, 2026; The Hill, 2026a; NY Post, 2026).

The street has already rendered its verdict. The No Kings protests, three mass demonstrations against the administration, culminated on March 28, 2026, in what organizers describe as the largest single-day protest in American history, with more than 3,300 events (Wikipedia, 2026). The president’s response to the largest protest in American history was to post an AI-generated video of himself wearing a crown (Wikipedia, 2026). His aides are reportedly pushing to keep the Iran war quiet until the midterms, and Republicans called off a vote on a war resolution that was on the verge of passing (political.org, 2026; iNFOnews, 2026). The president sits on $850 million in his political operation while Republican candidates wait for spending (MS NOW, 2026a).

The Same Fact

The danger and the uselessness are not two criticisms. They are one criticism, stated twice. A president who starts a war he cannot win, who cannot pass the laws he promised, whose executive orders are struck down in sequence, whose economy is weaker than the one he inherited, and whose own party is preparing for a rout, is not a president who is dangerous in spite of being useless. He is dangerous because he is useless. The power is real. The competence is not. And power without competence does not sit still; it acts, and its actions fail, and the failures are paid for in blood, in money, and in the trust that a republic requires to function.

The republic has a remedy available, and it arrives on November 3. The midterms are not a referendum on a man’s personality. They are a decision about whether the country will continue to be governed by a president who cannot govern, at a cost that is already being paid. The crown is cracked. The office is older than the man who holds it, and it will outlast him. The question is how much more the country pays before it remembers that.

Sources

PRH | huffmanwrites.org | © Philip Huffman