Boston, MA, US-March 4, 2025: Anti-Trump protest in Boston Common organized by the 50501 Movement entitled 'Saving Our Union'. (Photo credit: Heidi Besen / Shutterstock)
Even if Democrats sweep the midterms, the country could be barreling toward a cascade of crises that no election can head off.
That's the warning from national security journalist Marcy Wheeler, the independent reporter behind the long-running blog emptywheel.
In a post published Thursday, Wheeler argued that "we're at the point where Trump's incompetence is beginning to create snowballing problems" and that Americans should brace for them now rather than pin every hope on November.
She laid out a grim inventory of crises, including a grinding war with Iran and rising oil prices, a Strategic Petroleum Reserve drained to dangerously low levels, Navy carriers pushed to the breaking point, closing hospitals, lost health care and food aid, and a cybersecurity system she contends was gutted and then exploited by Iran. Wheeler also pointed to signs of economic strain that typically signal a crisis. Extreme weather, Wheeler added, could soon collide with wartime pressure to spike food prices or cut power and water for millions.
Her central fear is that these could hit all at once, at a moment when, in her telling, Trump has hollowed out the government of competent people. Citing author Naomi Klein, she argued that disasters left unanswered by the left will be seized on by the right.
Wheeler also cautioned against Democratic complacency. Winning a chamber of Congress looks likely, she wrote, but subpoena power won't be the magic fix many expect, given how Trump stonewalled oversight in 2019. More useful now, in her view: local activism like the fights against ICE raids and data centers, court battles, and grassroots pressure she said doesn't depend on leaders like Chuck Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries.