If It’s Leadership You Want, Stop Looking to Washington, D.C.

As it turns out, the American people don’t like Presidents who start undeclared wars. Perhaps that is because America has never lost a war we have declared, and we’ve never won one that we didn’t. Mr. Truman and his party paid the political price in 1952; LBJ in 1968; Bush 43 in 2008.

Mr. Trump was free to go to Congress and ask for a Declaration of War against Iran. The case makes itself: Iran has been waging war against us since 1979, and the U.S. military has been itching to pay back the Mullahs since Desert One in 1980. But there’s a reason why our Founders placed the power to Declare War solely in the hands of Congress. War is the most consequential decision a country can make, and Total War is the only kind of war America is engineered to fight.

Mr. Trump has paid a severe political price for his hubris, but that doesn’t make his political enemies the good guys.

The midterm dust has not yet settled on Mr. Trump’s well-deserved shellacking, and the establishment gaslighting has already begun in earnest.

Look no further than the immediate spin from Politico claiming that despite the election results, the new Congress “cannot do much to constrain Trump from making war, in Iran or Greenland or anywhere else.”

This is constitutional gaslighting deployed as political cover.

To be clear, the Chief Executive has considerable power under our Constitution. As Alexander Hamilton famously argued in Federalist No. 70, a “vigorous Executive” is essential to the protection of the community and the steady administration of the laws. The President inherently possesses expansive authority over foreign policy, national security, and federal law enforcement.

But vigor is not omnipotence, so the Framers equipped a National Legislature with an absolute kill switch: The power of the purse.

If a President wants to wage war, upend agencies, or issue decrees that bypass the National Legislature, he requires federal employees using federal dollars to execute his policies. Because Congress alone has the power of the purse, it has absolute institutional authority to prevent the Executive from doing anything.

Under Article I of the Constitution, the Executive cannot spend a single dime without Congress’ permission. The Antideficiency Act gives this structural reality statutory teeth. Under 31 U.S. Code §1350, it is a crime for any government employee to spend public money without explicit authorization from the National Legislature. But 31 U.S. Code §3528 is where it really gets painful: Under that provision, a government employee who authorizes a payment prohibited by law is personally liable for repaying it.

We have seen Congressional Supremacy successfully exercised against Presidents of both parties in recent years.

When Mr. Obama flirted with fulfilling his campaign promise to close Guantanamo Bay and repatriate detainees to the mainland, Congress simply inserted a rider into the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act prohibiting any public money from being used to move anyone out of Guantanamo without prior Congressional authorization. Government officials are paid very generously, but not generously enough to pay $19,515 per hour to fly a C17 out of Guantanamo.

Mr. Obama was completely boxed in, but only because public outrage actually forced Congress out of “Kabuki Mode” for a change.

Public outrage is one thing that can get our Congress Critters to stop grandstanding for a moment. But a far more effective goad is institutional self-preservation.

After Mr. Trump flirted with unilaterally withdrawing from the North Atlantic Treaty on his first term, Congress passed legislation explicitly prohibiting the use of any federal funds to execute a withdrawal from NATO. Tying the Chief Executive’s hands to protect Zombie NATO isn’t necessarily in the National Interest, but it was definitely important to those who have gotten comfortable in the taxpayer-funded oasis of Washington, D.C.

Regardless of whether it was a popular (or even good) idea, the Executive was once again tamed in an area in which Politico would have us believe Congress “cannot do much.”

Horsefeathers.

The claim that Congress is powerless against an unpopular president is a deeply cynical fiction which exposes the moral bankruptcy of modern Political Kabuki Theater.

During campaign season, politicians promise the moon and the stars (and billions of your dollars) to energize their base, only to arrive in Washington and immediately pretend their hands are tied. They disclaim the power of the National Legislature because actually using the power of the purse requires taking hard votes, facing down executive vetoes, and doing the grueling work of governance. It is far easier to feign impotence and fundraise off the outrage of the President’s overreach. That’s the business model of politics, and it is highly lucrative for those “on the inside.”

Republicans are waking up this morning to a grim reality: Mr. Trump has succeeded in gutting a legacy Republican Party that has been badly in need of a reboot since 1989, while his political enemies retain a near-monopoly on shouting about what is and isn’t taboo.

Humans are intensely sensitive to incentives, and the Elite Establishment’s grift is just too sweet for either side to actually want to disrupt it. Despite the electoral earthquake, our Elite Establishment is already working hard to ensure that nothing is actually going to change.

This structural stagnation has created a massive hole in the marketplace of ideas—a void that will inevitably be filled by an actual leader from outside of Washington, D.C.

Whoever that actual leader is, he or she will succeed where the current establishment has failed by articulating three simple, unshakeable truths:

1. The only policies worth even considering at the National level are those which cannot be better dealt with at the state, community, family, or individual level.
2. The only policies worth pursuing are those which support you (and all your fellow citizens) in fully realizing your dreams and aspirations—for yourself and those for whom you are responsible.
3. Everything else is an irrelevant distraction; and, therefore, gaslighting.

A Blue Tsunami has washed away a host of morally bankrupt Republican politicians and humiliated the Hegemon of Earth. To that, I say: Good! (And I would say the same thing if it had been the Democrats’ turn for a rebuke.)

As countless minions have learned, Mr. Trump is always there for you when he needs you. So let’s not shed too many tears for Mr. Trump. He’s still rich and famous, and he is likely to remain so while both sides waste the next two years antagonizing one another (and, hopefully, occasionally cutting deals like Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gingrich had to in their time).

Mr. Trump has served his purpose and is now, politically, a dead man walking. But not even the most powerful man on earth can singlehandedly undo the corruption, incompetence, inefficiency, or indifference which always accompanies overcentralized power.

America, you have spoken; and the world has heard you loud and clear. So pat yourself on the back this morning. We have, once again, demonstrated the capacity to peacefully hand over power from one selfish faction to another.

Meanwhile, let’s hope some sensible leaders are listening to what you actually said, rather than what they want to hear.

Daniel Zene Crowe is a retired Army Officer and long-serving military lawyer. At U.S. European Command, he was responsible for managing the Iranian threat to the Caucasus. He has advised military leaders and civilian politicians for decades.

© Daniel Zene Crowe, 2026

About the Author:
LTC Daniel Zene Crowe, U.S. Army Retired, is a West Point grad, Army Ranger, Cavalryman, and Paratrooper who spent the last two-thirds of his Army career as a military lawyer. In 2011, he returned to his native Oregon to assume duties as Oregon’s Veterans Advocate, serving Veterans and Veteran Families throughout Oregon struggling with homelessness, mental illness, and addiction. Dan was the 2016 Republican nominee for Oregon Attorney General.