Two years ago, extremists attacked the physical citadel of democracy. Today, extremists are assaulting the institutional pillars of Congress, in an offensive that could inflict even more lasting damage.
Consider the demands that hard-right conservatives opposed to California Republican Kevin McCarthy as Speaker have made, some of them already proposed as House rules:
·A balanced federal budget with no deficit spending, an objective that, however worthy over the long term, could upend the economy if it’s imposed overnight or shuts down the government.
·More freedom to eliminate federal offices and fire government workers, potentially decimating the nonpartisan civil service that serves as a cornerstone of effective governance and a functioning democracy.
· Defund the Internal Revenue Service, making it easier for the super rich to evade taxes, and harder for the government to fund its operations—and balance the budget.
· Gut the House ethics panel, officially the bipartisan Office of Congressional Ethics, making it harder to hire staff and imposing term limits that would effectively oust most of the panel’s Democratic-appointed members.
The anti-McCarthy brigade, led by such Freedom Caucus firebrands as Andy Biggs, of Arizona, Matt Gaetz, of Florida, and Virginia’s Bob Good, casts its agenda as a bid to bring back “deliberation and input by the body” that serves as “the people’s voice.” That’s how several of them put it in a “ Dear Colleague ” letter outlining their concerns that also called for re-opening the legislative process to allow House members more time to read and amend bills.
Allowing more time to read bills sounds reasonable enough, but that same letter also made clear the economic chaos conservatives could unleash if they refuse to raise the debt limit or approve a federal budget. The letter urges using “Must-Pass” legislation to “Check the Biden Administration,” leveraging appropriations bills, for one, to “utilize the power of the purse to actually stop the border insurgency, restore energy freedom, and/or block the hiring of more IRS personnel to harass Americans.”
The real agenda of the group blocking McCarthy, which has grown to some 20 lawmakers, is to slash the size and reach of the federal government, an ideological crusade that has been building since the days of former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich in the 1990s and the Tea Party movement launched in 2009. Now, with a new crop of far-Right Republicans bolstering the Freedom Caucus, the GOP lurch to the right is nearing its logical conclusion with full dysfunction in the House.
Is this worse than the loss of seven lives in connection with the January 6 assault on the Capitol two years ago, and a president who, according to the House select committee that investigated that attack, violated the law on several fronts in seeking to overturn the 2020 election?
It remains to be seen whether far-right House members succeed in dismantling key ethics, governance and economic safeguards that aim to keep American government transparent, accountable and functional. But the successes of the January 6 committee, on the second anniversary of that assault, are ominously overshadowed today by a House minority’s determination to interfere with Congress through institutional, if not physical, destruction.
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.