Congress remembered it has war powers. Took them 243 years and a potential Iran conflict, but they got there.
The resolutions split along party lines because when you're deciding whether to send other people's children to die in the Middle East, it's crucial to check your voter base first. Half of Congress wants to force Trump to abandon a war that hasn't started. The other half wants to let him start it. Both sides agree the stock market will probably go up either way, so retail traders are frantically Googling "defense contractor ETFs" and misspelling Raytheon in their search bars.
Trump would veto any measure limiting his war powers. This shocks nobody except the seven people who thought constitutional checks and balances were more than a civics class memory. The man spent four years treating executive authority like a Twitter poll. Why would he let Congress ruin his fun now?
The absurdity here isn't the political theater. It's that Congress thinks passing a resolution Trump will veto counts as doing something. It's the legislative equivalent of a toddler building a sandcastle at high tide and calling it urban planning.
Retail traders see this headline and think it's actionable intelligence. It is not. Wars start or they don't. Oil spikes or it doesn't. Your $400 position in crude futures will not benefit from your geopolitical analysis, Derek. You don't even know where Iran is on a map. You thought Tehran was a spice.
The real trade here is watching Congress pretend constitutional oversight matters while Trump signs executive orders with a Sharpie and the defense budget grows regardless of who controls what. But you won't make that trade because it requires patience and self-awareness, two things retail traders abandoned the moment they downloaded Robinhood.
Congress will vote. Trump will veto. Iran will still be there. Your portfolio will still be red.
Photo by hosein charbaghi on Unsplash
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