Unger is co-founder and executive director of the Students Learn Students Vote Coalition.
On July 11, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Nikema Williams introduced the Youth Voting Rights Act, which if enacted would be perhaps the most significant expansion of voting access for young people in more than 50 years. It’s the second major action intended to make voting easier for young people, including and especially college students, in just the past few months, following an April Dear Colleague letter from the Department of Education to every college campus in the United States reminding them of their obligation under the Higher Education Act to conduct voter registration efforts at their institutions.
To be clear, both actions were taken separately, by different public officials in different branches of the federal government. But their proximity in timing is no coincidence. There is a burgeoning student vote movement on college campuses throughout the country – one that could help revitalize U.S. democracy. And national leaders are beginning to notice.
It used to be seen as gospel that college students don’t vote. That narrative simply isn’t true anymore. During the last two presidential elections, the college student voting rate grew from 52 percent to a record-breaking 66 percent, virtually matching the general population’s sky-high turnout while growing by 14 points – twice as much as overall turnout growth. During the last two midterms, the student voting rate more than doubled – from 19 percent in 2014 to 40 percent in 2018. And polling indicates a similar turnout rate is likely in 2022.
Perhaps even more encouraging is the rising institutional support that is necessary to ensure these gains are sustainable. As of this week a record 413 college and university presidents have signed the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge’s Presidents’ Commitment, a pledge to strive for 100 percent registration and turnout rates among eligible student voters at their institutions. And in 2020, nearly 1,200 campuses (also a record) participated in the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement, a study performed by Tufts University’s Institute for Democracy & Higher Education that provides an in-depth look into student voting behavior at the campus level.
The Dear Colleague letter and introduction of the YVRA – which would, among other things, require public colleges and universities to provide voter registration services, guarantee that student IDs are accepted as voter IDs where required, and require public colleges and universities to set up a polling place for all federal elections – will fuel this movement further. But its potential benefit to our democracy goes beyond voter participation.
From protesting for civil rights and against the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s to anti-apartheid protests in the 1980s, college campuses have long been home to movements through which young people have helped elevate issues on the national stage. In 2022, with our country’s democratic values and institutions backsliding, democracy itself could use a similar jolt of energy from the communities that house millions of our youngest voters.
That’s why it’s vital that leaders, both national and local, seeking to support the rising student vote movement view voter participation as the start – and not the end result – of a deeper renewal of the civic values and practices that sustain democracy over the long term. The same elements that often make college campuses the center of protest movements – shared spaces that encourage social interaction, a common identity and the exchange of ideas – make them ideal places to foster a culture of active civic engagement, civil discourse across differences, and inclusivity.
At minimum doing so would help ensure institutions of higher learning help produce more informed and engaged participants in our democracy, especially among first-time voters, for whom the voting process is frequently habit-forming for life. But if history is any indication, widespread student movements are capable of impacting the rest of the country.
For a country in sore need of a democratic revitalization, college campuses are a great place to start.
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.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.