Kentucky's new governor plans to sign an executive order Thursday restoring the vote to more than 100,000 convicted non-violent felons who have completed their sentences.
Andy Beshear, a Democrat and former state attorney general, made the announcement Tuesday in his inaugural address. It's the fulfillment of a promise that shaped the closing days of his campaign last fall, when he won an upset against Republican incumbent Matt Bevin.
"My faith teaches me to treat others with dignity and respect. My faith also teaches forgiveness," Beshear said, and so he will use his executive power to restore "voting rights to over 100,000 men and women who have done wrong in the past but are doing right now. They deserve to participate in our great democracy."
The new governor's move will be the largest restoration of voting rights for felons since Florida voters approved a measure last year granting the franchise to as many as 1.4 million who have finished prison, probation and parole. But a law enacted by the Legislature to place restrictions on felons' voting has tied up many of their new rights in state and federal courts.
Only Kentucky and Iowa permanently disenfranchise all felons unless the governor grants a reprieve — something that Bevin did in about 1,200 cases during his single term.
"By taking this step, by restoring these voting rights, we declare that everyone in Kentucky counts," Beshear said. "We all matter."
Beshear appears likely to reinstate an executive order signed in 2015 by his father, Democrat Steve Beshear, that was rescinded by Bevin, his successor. That order would have restored voting rights and the right to hold office to more than 140,000 Kentuckians who had completed their sentences and paid all court-ordered fines and restitution.
About one-quarter of the state's disenfranchised population is African-American, a significant portion of whom were convicted on non-violent drug possession charges, according to The Sentencing Project, which advocates for reducing racial disparities in the criminal justice system.
While the new wave of voters will likely vote solidly Democratic, they are unlikely to shift the state's balance of political power. President Trump can be confident of easily carrying the state, which he won by 30 points last time, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is solidly favored to win re-election
Bashear won by just over 5,000 votes, a margin of half a percentage point. Bevin opposed such a widespread restoration of voting rights. He said it would be an abuse of executive power and such a decision should be made by the Legislature.
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.