Joan Blades is Co-Founder of LivingRoomConversations.org, MomsRising.org and MoveOn.org.
A Question of Respect: Bringing Us Together in a Deeply Divided Nation was published earlier this year. The need to address toxic popular and political culture is being recognized by people across the political spectrum. Ed Goeas and Celinda Lake are pollsters and strategists that have worked together to create joint Battleground Polls for more than thirty years. Ed is a Republican and Celinda is a Democrat.
One thing I love about their book is they not only work together to better understand public sentiment, they also really like each other. They disagree about many things and still respect and trust each other. They make a very strong argument that we’d be a more successful nation and happier by far if we learned how to make this a more common occurrence.
Ed was born and raised in a Democratic military family. Celinda was born and raised in a Republican ranch family. They both changed parties at the same age in the same year, 1972. They believe that their roots taught them respect for the other side. Celinda reflected, “We both learned from our parents that you grant every human being respect. That is the starting point.”
Due to their work, Celinda and Ed have a unique and particularly well informed perspective on the polarizing dynamics our nation is experiencing. Their shared conclusion that there are things we can do and should do now personally, as well as structurally, is being echoed widely in our society. Research confirms that high levels of trust are a key element of successful communities while also showing that most people are deeply unhappy with our current political dynamics. Celinda and Ed suggest that young people may be the most clear eyed of all about the need for change… and are ready to take on the job.
This said, as they interact with young people in focus groups and classes, they are finding a fundamental challenge in the lessons regarding shared respect they learned growing up. Many young people now have a different view on respect. Rather than granting it to others, they believe, "I'll show respect if shown respect first."
The bridging movement has work to do. Last year books such as Monica Guzman’s I Never Thought of it That Way and Amanda Ripley’s High Conflict helped lift up and amplify the message that we need to find ways to be in healthy relationships with people that we may disagree with on various issues. A Question of Respect comes from very different origins and gives us another powerful tool to work with in bridging our divides.
“We don’t always agree but we are firmly committed to hearing each other out, offering solutions, and respecting each other.”
Thank you to both Celinda and Ed for being valuable spokespeople for Trust and Respect!
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.