A slight easing of access to absentee ballots in Louisiana was ordered by a federal judge Wednesday. But even if her ruling survives a possible appeal, the state's voters will still face some of the strictest restrictions on voting by mail.
A purported compromise for the general election — requiring voters to produce a signed doctor's note before claiming poor health or exposure to the coronavirus makes it unwise to go to the polls — was struck down as an undue burden on voting rights by Judge Shelly Dick of Baton Rouge.
Instead, she said, the state must take voters at their word if their application cites illness, quarantine, caring for a sick relative or high susceptibility to Covid-19. That rule is still more restrictive than what's now been put in effect, at least for the presidential contest, in 45 states.
Nonetheless, the ruling was hailed by Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards. He had reluctantly agreed to the doctor's note plan a few weeks ago when he could not persuade the Republicans in control of most of the state government to continue relaxing the absentee rules for November (and the state's unique December runoffs) the way they had for a pair of primaries this summer.
"Simply put: Covid-19 remains a serious problem in Louisiana and voting should not be a super spreader event," the governor said.
"Bumbling attempts to fix what was not broken have brought us to today," the judge wrote in her opinion. She likened the need to find (and presumably pay) a doctor for an opinion to an unconstitutional poll tax.
The state's top GOP officials, Attorney General Jeff Landry and Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, said they were considering asking the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse her. But the timetable is tight for playing out such a legal fight. Early in-person voting, the option many will presumably choose if they cannot claim an absentee ballot, begins in four weeks.
President Trump seems assured of extending the GOP's record of winning Louisiana to six elections in November. He took its 8 electoral votes by 20 points last time.
Less than 1 percent of the absentee ballots cast in the primaries were from voters who cited the coronavirus as their excuse. The number was that low because voters older than 65, who are some of the likeliest victims of the pandmeic, are not required to give a reason to vote by mail.
The individual voters who brought the lawsuit were joined by the Louisiana branch of the NAACP and the Power Coalition for Equity & Justice, a voter rights group.
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.