Six months into a war President Trump promised would last weeks, Americans are paying nearly a dollar more per gallon at the pump while Congress — both parties — keeps the money flowing and the exits blocked.

The Iran war has become exactly what voters were told it wouldn't be: another open-ended foreign commitment with no off-ramp, rising costs at home, and a bipartisan establishment that refuses to cut off funding or constrain presidential war powers. The AP-NORC Center found roughly two-thirds of U.S. adults say the war hasn't been worth fighting — including more than a third of Republicans.

Trump launched strikes in late February forecasting four to five weeks. By June, he declared the U.S. had "obliterated" Iran's nuclear program and a memorandum of understanding was supposed to pave the way to end the conflict. That deal collapsed. U.S. weapons stockpiles have diminished. The administration has pivoted to economic pressure and new sanctions rather than strikes, but the Strait of Hormuz — through which about 20% of the world's oil passed — remains largely closed, driving up fuel and fertilizer costs. Trump has at times suggested the strait would become American territory and the U.S. could impose a toll on passing ships. Other times he insists it is functioning, telling Glenn Beck this week: "It's a functioning strait. Yes, every once in a while, there'll be a drone or a rocket or something shot, but it is a very functioning strait." Tell that to the gas pump.

About 970 pounds of enriched uranium remain unaccounted for — buried under bombed sites, with Iran declining to consent to U.S. retrieval. Experts say seizing it without permission would require a sizable deployment of American troops into the country. So much for the swift victory.

In Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 33-year-old restaurant server Mike Gibbons sat out the last presidential election. Not this time. "The price of gas affects the price of everything and the price of everything's up and my pay hasn't gone up," he told the AP. "I'm doing blue no matter who this time." He's paying roughly $1 more per gallon than a year ago.

Trump has refused to acknowledge the cost, saying this month he would "never apologize" for higher prices and insisting he did "the right thing" to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Unlike George W. Bush, who spent over a year building a coalition case for Iraq, Trump did virtually nothing to prepare the public or allies for a protracted conflict.

Here is where both parties sell out the voter. Congressional Republicans have shifted from cheerleading to expressing concern about the war's toll — but they've unified to block any measure curbing Trump's war powers and shown zero interest in cutting off money. Democrats, meanwhile, are happy to run gas-station ads — Ohio Senate candidate Sherrod Brown filmed one saying "the cost of gas is out of control and we're the ones paying for it" — but when they held power, they presided over the same high prices they now campaign against. The establishment press frames this as a midterm headache for Republicans. The real story: the war machine is bipartisan, the funding is bipartisan, and the betrayal of America-first voters is bipartisan.

Nobody in Washington is naming a cost, defining an exit, or identifying the specific U.S. interest that justifies keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed and American wallets open. Defense contractors aren't complaining. The rest of us should be.