Anderson edited "Leveraging: A Political, Economic and Societal Framework" (Springer, 2014), has taught at five universities and ran for the Democratic nomination for a Maryland congressional seat in 2016.
The British Romantic poet John Keats remarked in one of his famous letters – letters that the British literary critic F.R. Leavis said were as important as his poems – that the world is "a vale of soul-making." He was responding to the traditional Christian view that the suffering in the world made life a "vale of tears," as in a valley of tears. The vale of tears led to an afterlife of eternal happiness, but Keats believed that the suffering on Earth needed to have meaning here – namely the building of a soul.
Life's inescapable suffering, according to Keats, could be used to build a soul, one capable of self-understanding as well as understanding others. Life requires understanding the harshness of reality, and the meaning of life turns on whether you can grow from the suffering.
Keats articulated this view of life when he was 23. When he was 8 he lost his father, who was stomped by a horse after falling off. Keats lost his mother, who had tuberculosis, when he was 14. He witnessed intense suffering when he studied to become a doctor. At age 22, he took care of his younger brother Tom, who died of tuberculosis. Keats himself died of tuberculosis when he was 25.
Keats' concept of life as a vale of soul-making can also be applied to a society.
The life of a democratic society like the United States passes through many stages on its quest to become a more perfect union. Those stages are marked by innovation, scientific and technological developments, and moral progress as much as by violence, exploitation, lynchings, war, and injustice.
Historians speak about periods of America's life, including the founding period, the Civil War, the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, World War I, the New Deal age, the Civil Rights era, the Cold War and the Reagan Revolution. Each of these periods is certainly marked by political, economic and social changes.
Yet the soul of the country is something more than the changing nature of the country's politics, economy and culture. Moreover, the soul of a nation is more complex than the soul of a person, because nations have groups in conflict with each other and may lack a sense of national identity and purpose.
What is missing in America today is not only a shared sense of national identity and purpose but a shared assumption that we need to have a shared sense of national identity and purpose.
Many Washington insiders may talk about this need, but the majority of Americans do not. Instead they are voting for politicians who support the policies that matter to them – whether it concerns abortion, guns, health care, immigration, child care or the environment – or just living their lives indifferent to politics or believing that both parties ignore them.
We have reached a point in the evolution of our national soul where we need to rethink the story of who we are.
The Keats theme of suffering and meaning can help. The suffering our citizens have endured has frequently led to profound changes in our political and economic institutions.
The story, however, cannot be focused on freedom, because this will turn into an intellectual hymn to a thin form of capitalism and very general affirmation of the Bill of Rights. Nor can we just list freedom, equality, toleration and justice because that will result in a smorgasbord of democratic ideals that is at once inspiring and not identifiable as distinctly American.
Seeking the American Dream is worn out.
Indeed, we need to rise above July Fourth orations and get to a concept that will unite Americans across the political spectrum and those who have checked out of politics altogether.
The Keatsian suffering theme can speak to radicals today who want to root out systemic racism, sexism and all forms of oppression.
The Keatsian suffering theme can also speak to mainstream liberals who celebrate the victories for women (getting the right to vote in 1920), for African-Americans (with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964), and memes of the LGBTQ community (who won rights in the last decade).
Finally, the Keatsian suffering theme can speak to conservatives who celebrate with pride and patriotism the passion and moral drive of the Founding Fathers and the men who fought in the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War.
The American soul will not take no for an answer.
It is born of suffering, it fights injustice and it never gives up, even though at any given time the society is divided between those who believe justice reigns and those who believe injustice prevails.
In the months leading up to the midterm elections, both parties and all candidates should explain to the American people what it means to be an American and why failing is no reason to stop trying to make our country better and to make peace in the world.
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.