Hi Joe,
I know this issue is too big to address in one article, but I’m feeling so hopeless, perhaps you have some perspective on this. My family and I are struggling with a cousin of mine who has bought into all of the extreme propaganda on social media. We can’t reach him anymore and we are worried he may get as bad as people who forced their way into the Capitol. It’s gone beyond just him inconveniencing our holiday gatherings with his theories on vaccines and stuff.
The only one he seems to kind of be reasonable with is me. But I don’t know what to do. Any suggestions?
Heartbroken.
Hi Heartbroken,
I’m deeply sorry that you are dealing with this. I’m talking with people around the world who are confronted with this – from mild to extreme – and I discuss this in length in my upcoming book, Fierce Civility. Here are a few points that might help you approach your cousin in a different way:
In my book, I lay out how the ongoing breakdown of independent critical thinking has resulted in so much volatility, polarization and lack of civil discourse. Losing the capacity to distinguish between what is a fact and a belief, and not having the courage to consider that what you perceive to be true may not be the whole story, is a large part of this. And make no mistake, we all do this on some level.
But the other significant factor to the causes of this phenomenon is an extreme degree of nervous system dysregulation. We are all struggling with a world filled with so much change, uncertainty and lack of trust in institutions, causing deep anxiety and fear. If this is the case, then caught in our fight-flight-freeze responses, anything that seems different or threatens our sense of security will be perceived as a threat. And the more we benefit from the current structures of power that are shifting, the higher the level of panic and dysregulation we will experience. All of this shuts down our hearts to empathy, compassion, wisdom and curiosity.
The combination of the lack of capacity to courageously question our beliefs, plus extreme chronic nervous system dysregulation, makes it almost impossible for someone to access their higher reasoning part of their brain. Stuck in the survival part of the brain, they will perceive any challenges to the status quo as possible life-or-death challenges. As a survival mechanism, they look for the first thing that eases their high levels of anxiety, even if what they latch onto isn’t factually true. And not only that, because these people find it hard to use their independent critical thinking, they are easily influenced by those who trigger their fear response and end up doing the thinking for them. Therefore, because they are no longer able to think critically and self-reflect, trying to change their mind, or argue issues and points, will not only not work, but exacerbate the tension and separation.
However, making an appeal to the heart, especially with those who are deeply entrenched in their beliefs, has the potential for more lasting impact than just using reason and facts. For instance, I have read accounts of people who have rescued family members from cults. Even though their loved ones were no longer living with, or associated with, the cult communities and were back with their families, they were still under the spell of the cult leaders. They explained that any attempts to use facts to help free these loved ones from what they still believed to be true failed, and, in fact, created more distance. They found that what did the trick was to always appeal to their hearts, reinforce that they are loved, and remind them of happy, fun stories of the past.
While the family members didn’t believe the same things, they still honored that what their loved ones believed in that moment was true for them. Always present and engaged in a compassionate way, they didn’t tell their loved ones they were wrong, but simply listened. Over time, the psychological power of the cult leaders had less power over them. Eventually, they were able to let go of that worldview and remember who they truly were.
This won’t instantly solve the problem, Heartbroken, but it may give you some insights as to what is happening with your cousin and support you to find a way to call him back to his heart. As I’ve said in many past articles, it is not our place to change people, but we can create the conditions of safety and trust which may eventually influence and transform their viewpoints so that they can find their way to back to themselves on their own time.
This is the true courageous work of compassion,
Joe
Learn more about Joe Weston and his work here. Make sure to c heck out Joe’s bestselling book Fierce Civility: Transforming our Global Culture from Polarization to Lasting Peace, published March 2023.
Have a question for Joe? Send an email to AskJoe@fulcrum.us
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.