Hi Joe,
I try to read the headlines and some articles in the NY Times and Washington Post as well as the Anchorage Daily News as I live in southcentral Alaska. I also subscribe to a few newsletters like The Fulcrum but don't always have time to read the great things written inside them.
I love what you are trying to do. But I have to remark that most of the lack of civility I see and hear is from politicians. Not to profile but it’s hard not to: it is mostly Republicans saying very accusatory and degrading stuff and often very false. These are the things that rile up their constituents. I have written to my US senators, both Republicans, and asked them to tone it down as all they are doing is feeding the volatility. Alaska got a lot of money from Joe Biden's infrastructure bill which both our senators voted for. But neither one of them have given credit to the President or to his administration.
I am looking at your book, it's on my to-read list. Thank you for your work! Don't tire of it!
Therese
Hello Therese,
Thanks so much for your question and your kind words. Your generosity and encouragement go a long way! And imagine what the world would look like if more of us did this on a regular basis: if we went out of our way to encourage, inspire and acknowledge others with no agenda or expectation of something coming back – not only with people we know and love, but also with strangers and perceived adversaries.
I appreciate your observation about the lack of civility coming from politicians. Yes, the whole nature of running for office is based on a deeply rooted internal polarization of “I have to win, and if you oppose me, you must lose.” I would suggest that this is a choice, not a fixed reality. Winning at all costs is a symptom of a culture that humiliates and disempowers the loser. As we have seen recently, officials and citizens will be willing to break down a system in order to not, at any cost, be perceived as a loser.
With so much uncertainty and anxiety, we get caught in our flight=flight-freeze response. This causes us to unintentionally perceive anything that is different or new as a threat; this shuts down our hearts. And as you see, the higher the anxiety and trauma, the more threat we feel.
And in politics at this time, any success on one side is perceived as a threat to the other. Any setback for one side is celebrated as a threat to the other. Any attempts at collaboration are seen as weakness.
As I break it down in my book, Fierce Civility, the true polarity of winning is “not”-winning, not losing. In other words, at its highest level, not winning doesn’t make you a loser; it means that you have been provided an opportunity to pick yourself up, do what they call in the military an “after-action report,” learn from that and eagerly jump back into the healthy competition with new skills and strategies. This is how we grow; this is the spirit of true creative debate and collaboration that leads to new, innovative solutions that get more buy-in from all involved. Win-win.
Yes, Therese, the rhetoric on the extremes of the political spectrum are, as you say, accusatory and degrading, and oftentimes, not consistent with the facts. However, from the Fierce Civility lens, by only naming Republicans as the ones who do this, you are setting up a false polarity. My examination here isn’t to make you wrong or for a need to win; but to offer another perspective. I am suggesting that the very act of doing a more nuanced and critical analysis of the situation is the very bridge and solution needed to remedy how bad things have gotten.
When you say Republicans, is it all Republicans, or perhaps the ones that are most extreme? Is it possible to know all Republicans? Probably not. So, if you conclude that it’s some Republicans who are using incivility to stoke more animosity, then the path to hope here is to find those Republicans who aren’t as extreme and build alliances with them.
In your statement, you only mention Republicans. Is it factually accurate that there are no non-Republicans who engage in rhetoric or strategies that are very accusatory, degrading or stretches the truth? In the process of reporting on a situation, it is virtually impossible to not put your own interpretation on it, no matter how close you come to accurately reporting the facts. From this perspective, you may come to the conclusion that non-Republicans also think, say and do things that cause harm and breakdown of civil discourse; they just may do it differently. Once again, you have the opportunity to distinguish which ones are truly committed to civil, inclusive solutions to our problems, and establish trusting relationships with them.
There’s plenty more to say about this. I’m simply offering a way to break through the mental constructs that create separation for the purpose of getting us back to talking to one another and honoring the humanity in each one of us. That starts with considering that we ALL are using rhetoric and strategies that disempower our opponents and widen the divide – just perhaps in different ways. The more we commit to relationships that are built on trust, safety, discourse that is both civil and fierce, and inclusivity, the quicker we overcome this destructive patterning we are in and shift the culture to one of mutual empowerment, even in the face of challenges.
Keep holding space for what is possible, Therese.
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.