Politics has felt weird for a while now. From Donald Trump himself to the noteworthy rise of populist sentiment that is affecting both parties, many informed people are left scratching their heads trying to understand what has come over the country. The American economy, historically the number one issue for voters, is the “envy of the world” according to a recent special report by The Economist; crime and illegal immigration are also down. Yet the 2024 presidential election was a decisive rebuke of the current administration, resulting in Trump leading the Republican party to its largest win in a presidential election since 1988.
Many postmortem conversations have focused on whether Kamala Harris should have run further to the right or the left and focused more attention during her abbreviated campaign on popular social or economic issues. This one-dimensional view of the right-left political spectrum, with traditional conservatism on one end and redistributive socialism on the other, comes up short in describing our current politics. It is only through recognizing the class dimension of political appeal, whereby some candidates tailor their message to the priorities of the educated, cosmopolitan class, and others tailor their message to the concerns of the working class that recent political contests can be better understood.
Consider a recent example from each party. In the 2020 primary for the Democratic nomination, both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren ran far left on the traditional political spectrum, yet they connected with very different voters. A Politico headline didn’t mince words: “Sanders and Warren voters have astonishing little in common,” noting Sander’s appeal to lower income, less educated people and Warren’s appeal to the college educated. In the 2024 Republican primary, Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis had fewer discernible policy differences. Yet, studies showed that DeSantis appealed more to suburban, better educated, and higher income voters than Trump, who had more appeal in rural areas and amongst the working class.
Both parties now have politicians who speak to the cosmopolitan and working-class parts of their coalitions. In an era of skyrocketing economic inequality, it is perhaps no surprise that the class dimension is becoming more salient in understanding politics. A more useful way to think about political appeal might be as a scatterplot with right-left and class dimensions rather than a spectrum.
The election saw Harris garner an incredible number of celebrity endorsements and a fundraising operation that far outpaced the former president’s. Final voter demographic data is still being compiled, but it is already clear that her supporters were better educated and had higher incomes, underscoring Trump’s position as the preferred candidate of the working class. While working-class voters are less likely to vote and donate, they do outnumber their more cosmopolitan counterparts and can play kingmaker in elections where they turn out in sufficient numbers.
As the Democrats look to regain congressional power in the 2026 election and hold an open primary in 2028, they would be diligent in considering how their candidates appeal across the class dimension in addition to how far right or left they should run on the issues of the day. As the Republicans look to consolidate their gains and find a candidate for 2028 who can replicate Trump’s electoral success, they should remember how little support establishment Republicans like Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley garnered and not take their new working-class base for granted. Both parties need to give up thinking exclusively about how much their candidates should run toward the center and give real thought to how they can connect with the full spectrum of Americans they purport to represent.
Daniel Zimny-Schmitt is a researcher at the University of Denver.
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.