The irony seems obvious: One consequence of the burst in voter participation this year is that it will be tougher for those same voters to participate next time.
Half the states give their people a shot at putting proposals to a statewide vote, the sort of citizen-driven democracy that many good-government voices say should be much closer to the rule than the exception. In 10 of those states, which are home to about one in six Americans, the petition signature minimums for getting referendums on the ballot are tied to recent turnout and registration numbers.
No surprise after an election when the highest share of eligible people voted in more than a century, the 2020 figures went up in all 10 states. But here's the surprise for those unfamiliar with the legal quirk: Millions more people will need to sign on to proposed plebiscites starting next year or else the measures won't be considered.
These so-called direct democracy measures amounted to one-third of the 129 ballot initiatives put to a vote across 34 states in November. (The rest get placed on the ballot by legislatures.) The number was much lower than at any other time in the past decade — according to a new report from Ballotpedia, a digital encyclopedia of American elections — almost surely a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic. Only 5 percent of campaigns to gather signatures succeeded, in part because more than two dozen were abandoned in the face of the Covid-19 outbreak.
But the proposals from the public that did get considered generated $935 million in donations and campaign spending, by Ballotpedia's estimate, almost four-fifths of all the money raised and spent on 2020 ballot measures.
While taxes was the most popular topic, with 26 measures overall, proposals to change campaign finance rules, redistricting authority or other election rules was second at 18.
Source: Ballotpedia
Looking forward, the threshold for future citizen-initiated ideas will grow most dramatically in Nevada — 44 percent.
That's because the state's complex law factors the previous two elections, not just one. Turnout in the fast-growing state soared in 2018 thanks to highly competitive contests for governor and the Senate, then rose significantly again this fall after the presidential battleground responded to the coronavirus pandemic by sending every active registered voter a mail-in ballot.
At the same time, however, the spread of Covid-19 crushed prospects for one of the year's premier ballot measures, which would have created an independent commission to draw Nevada's congressional and legislative boundaries in time for the nationwide redistricting that starts next year. After the courts ruled that electronic signatures could not count, advocates collected only a fraction of the 980,000 required. And from now on the minimum will be 141,000.
The requirement will grow 16 percent, or more than 199,000 signatures, in another fast-growing state: Florida, which is also by far the biggest state where citizen democracy's prospects in the future are driven by participation in the past.
It permits people to propose amendments to the state constitution, with 60 percent supermajorities required, and two of the most prominent have been on the ballot in recent years. In 2018 the state voted to allow almost all former felons to resume voting after they are through with prison, probation and parole — a list to which the Legislature has now added payment of fines and other court costs. Last month the majority of 57 percent was not enough to open the state's primaries to all voters, the top two finishers advancing to November regardless of party.
The other states where citizens may propose ballot measures do not tie their minimal signature requirements to the most recent turnout — and the current ranges are from 17,000 in South Dakota to 59 times that amount, or 997,000, in California.
Most base the number on the total votes cast in the last governor's race. But, either way, the paradoxical result is similar: Only fewer votes for candidates from one year to the next will mean an easier road for initiative-writers.
After turnout for the 2014 midterm plunged to its lowest level since World War II, the thresholds dropped 11 percent nationwide — and the number of citizen initiatives and veto referendums more than doubled, to 76 on statewide ballots in 2016.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
____
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.