Molineaux is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
This is the third and final editorial in a series about bridging divides and thwarting authoritarianism. Read part 1 and part 2.
The quality of our relationships is one measure of our national strength and our country’s well-being. “A house divided against itself can not stand,” as Abraham Lincoln once noted. Authoritarians have noted this, too. Hence their efforts to spew lies and conspiracy theories designed to weaken our nation.
My ongoing (and rhetorical) questions about our ability to strengthen democracy and bridge our divides include:
- Given how smart we are, why do we allow ourselves to be divided?
- What is so damn important about our political identities that we splinter ourselves into warring camps and suffer alone or in grievance groups?
- How might we use our skills as mediators, coaches, conflict specialists and bridgers to remind us and those around us that politics is only one part of who we are?
- We have common human needs and common goals, which we seem to forget. How can we remember better?
- Who are we really? Who must we become?
- How do we discredit the conflict profiteers and minimize their damage?
Systemically, we need scholars of authoritarianism to lead the way. As human beings sharing a community, we need people to have the skills of bridging and conflict resolution to self-govern in a healthy way, once we have chosen our democratic republic and/or improved upon it.
A September article about a psychologist highlights the importance of high-quality relationships and supports the underlying hypothesis of the bridging divides work for self-governance:
“A high-quality relationship is one in which we have an ongoing sense that our partner has our back,” says Alexandra Solomon, a licensed clinical psychologist, author and host of the Reimagining Love podcast.
Solomon adds other factors that can come into play, such as a sense of trust and commitment. “Commitment is essential,” Solomon notes. “That sense that you were here yesterday, you’re here today, you’re going to be here tomorrow. That sense of continuity helps us relax and makes it safe enough to be vulnerable.”
We have all experienced trauma, from family dynamics to the education system to the pandemic and more. When we lose relationships over politics, that is an additional trauma. Now we have an entire body politic that is traumatized while we are experiencing massive change due to multiple crises.
We need each other more than ever before. Yet societally, we are experiencing an epidemic of loneliness. When an authoritarian group recruits, it offers a community and the vulnerable among us the opportunity to decide it’s a better option.
Can we imagine what it’s like for someone to have our back? To have confidence that our fellow Americans and people different from ourselves are committed to our happiness and well-being? Of course, we need to provide that for others, too.
We need to have each other’s back in society – that’s liberty and justice for all, as we used to pledge in school.
Our multiple crises feel urgent. Many of us already know what is needed. It is time to be bold. It is time to turn ideas into action. Let us act now; to nurture and prioritize high-quality relationships with people who are different from ourselves. Denounce political violence and take pledges to accept election results. Advancing the American experiment is the work of our lifetimes. And if we succeed, we will rededicate to one another (via bridging divides) and to our democratic republic (via non-violent, pro-democracy acts).
Let’s stop studying the problem and start the work. That’s the essence of the bridging divides and pro-democracy work for everyday people.
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.”
____
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.