For the fifth time, the Congressional Management Foundation presented awards last week to members of Congress and their staff for exemplary service. In addition to the regular awards honoring constituent service, workplace environment, transparency and accountability, and innovation and modernization, CMF chose an unusual tribute this year, bestowing a Special Democracy Award to the nonpartisan floor staff of the U.S. House and Senate.
It was my honor to present that award on behalf of the Bridge Alliance, a founding partner of the Democracy Awards.
The Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol will leave a scar on the congressional community that will last forever. Many members of Congress, law enforcement officers and congressional staff have talked openly about the trauma the attacks had on their mental well-being. Yet there is one group rarely heard from who played a crucial role on that fateful day: the nonpartisan floor staff of the House and Senate. This is a group of public servants who are rarely recognized for their contributions. Yet without their dedication and hard work the engine of democracy would fail to function.
On Jan. 6 they were put in harm's way, asked to go above and beyond expectations, and worked with others to protect the peaceful transition of power, which is the hallmark of our democracy. These public servants were the stewards of democracy when we needed them most and continue to perform admirably as silent patriots serving under the dome. We owe them our gratitude for their outstanding work before, during and after Jan. 6, 2021.
We hope this recognition will for a brief moment shine a light on the work of these silent patriots, and demonstrate to the broader congressional community — and indeed all Americans — that democracy doesn't simply function by itself. Democracy needs dedicated public servants, willing to make sacrifices, to perform their jobs irrespective of ideology and political party. We congratulate these staffers for their continued service to Congress and the American people. My edited remarks, honoring these people and their service, follow.
We know that for democracy to function, indeed for democracy to do so in a healthy way, requires work, patience and diligence. Each one of us should be working to strengthen democracy in America. The five principles of Bridge Alliance, to which our members align, state that we are better when we collaborate, embrace differences, focus on solutions with open mindedness, and insure Americans are informed and active. Through these principles, we empower college students to be prepared voters, bridge the cultural and political divides through thoughtful conversations, and improve our elections systems so every American can know their vote is counted accurately and that it matters.
Democracy, itself, is a process by which a nation of diverse individuals can make collective decisions. And in our democratic republic, we rely upon those who hold and honor the rules of engagement, our agreed upon processes, for our governance to work. Without people willing to learn the often arcane rules of our United States Congress, and guide our elected officials in the protocols, we would have chaos.
Most Americans never see the work of the floor staff of Congress. You are the people behind the scenes, on the floor of the House and Senate, who go quietly about your work, shepherding our representative democracy.
Never was your work, and the value of it, more visible and more important than on Jan. 6, 2021, when the Capitol was stormed and lives threatened for protecting the vote counting process following the presidential election of 2020. We owe each and every one of you a debt of gratitude for your service.
I asked my team at Bridge Alliance for ideas on what to say in presenting this award to you. Uniformly, they asked me to thank you. You demonstrated for all to see that the process of showing up, of staying vigilant and exhibiting dedication to completing your work, is what it takes to save our republic.
It is my honor to present you with this Special Award, recognizing the floor staff of the United States Congress for their exemplary actions to assure the continued peaceful transfer of power in the United States.
And with a tear in my eye and a quiver in my voice, we applauded these heroes. May they inspire us all to do the right thing when our country needs us most.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.