Megan Rawlins Woods is the Senior Director of Nonpartisanship for Mormon Women for Ethical Government. She is from West Jordan, Utah. She earned a bachelor’s degree in planning and resource management from Brigham Young University. She currently lives with her husband and five children in rural Utah.
As I watched the debt ceiling standoff between Republican lawmakers and President Biden over the last several months, I returned to a question I have been contemplating for several years: What is the difference between taking a principled stand on an issue and being a stubborn, egotistical obstructionist?
For most of us, whether a politician seems principled or egotistical often depends on whether we agree with the stand they have taken. But with just a little effort, I believe we can get past our biases.
Our culture is built on the idea of winners and losers. In sports (naturally) and business, in academics and talent, even in romance and family — we see competition in all of it. We want to win at life. And if there are winners, there must be losers.
This cultural idea is prevalent in politics. Obviously, there are definite winners and losers in elections. However, as a government by the people, it’s dangerous to approach every single topic or issue as a competition, with close to half of the country being designated “losers.” This mentality creates a country of “us” versus “them,” with each side claiming a monopoly on truth and morality and painting the others as deluded, ignorant, or even evil.
We need to stop viewing political opposition as an enemy to annihilate. We cannot silence the opposition. The so-called enemy is not going anywhere. In fact, they are equal participants in our democracy with valid concerns. There will always be people around us with whom we disagree. We live together. We work together. We go to school together and church together and are part of the same communities. We need to learn to govern together.
Governing together means respecting and understanding different perspectives. As President Henry B. Eyring, a leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said, “. . . differences can be seen as an opportunity. . . . [We can] see a difference in someone else not as a source of irritation but as a contribution.”
Unfortunately, we — the voters — seem to celebrate extremism. We want to be winners. We want to vote for winners. We click on the viral links and support efforts to give ego-driven politicians more exposure. We also cheer when the opposition falters or fails. We mock their mistakes or missteps (literally, in the case of Biden ’s tripping or Trump ’s cautious descent at West Point).
Our celebration of extremism means we are supporting candidates who have no intention of collaborating to pass legislation. I have seen candidates campaign by claiming they will not go to Washington, D.C., to make friends. I have seen incumbents boast that their colleagues find them difficult to work with. We have politicians who, when they are presented with persuasive arguments, choose to dig in their heels to save face. That isn’t being principled. They seem to mistake antagonistic anger with strength, as if being insolent equates to standing on principle. Stubborn grandstanding is no way to run a democracy.
This type of stubbornness creates frustration and limits effectiveness. The best legislation comes through bipartisan efforts, and those efforts require negotiation, moderation, compromise, and collaboration. When elected officials work to build bridges, relationships, and friendships, they are more likely to produce the kind of legislation that has the longest lasting positive impact.
When I am trying to determine if a politician is driven by principle or ego, some questions I ask include: Is this a pattern of behavior? Does this politician routinely stand against bipartisan legislation that has wide support? Does their opposition to the legislation guarantee them media attention or a viral clip? Have they passionately declared their opposition to or support for a piece of legislation before it has even been discussed, debated, or written? Do they seem to have a knee-jerk reaction of anger to any idea presented by the opposing party? Do they appear to relish their ability to stand in the way of bipartisan legislation?
If the answer to these questions is yes, the politician may be driven by ego and not principle.
Correcting this aspect of divisiveness will require us to begin building intellectual relationships with our political opposition. We start by humanizing them as people, trusting that they are motivated by a sincere desire for good. We look for common ground and shared principles. Only then can we focus on creating policy to enact those principles. There is a healthy tension between different ideologies, and when we learn to respect those, we can find lasting solutions. Can we learn to see differences as contributions? If so, everybody wins.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.