Molineaux is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
More and more of us are becoming political junkies looking for our next dopamine hit.
Dopamine, that pleasure reward in our brain, is offered as encouragement for most people when we do good things and is the reason our addictions are so hard to give up. For me, it’s the chips and cookies I reach for when I’m stressed. For others it’s gaining political power, opiods, alcohol, tobacco, video games, pornography, winning an argument, “being right” and more.
Every time we watch media that confirms our beliefs, we get a little bit of dopamine. That’s why it feels like torture when we expose ourselves to news that doesn’t conform with our beliefs. There is no pleasure hit with dopamine to support widening our views. This is why facts don’t matter to people who have different beliefs. Most people don’t have a good enough reason to build the stamina to withstand the feeling of torture. No, it’s not really torture. It’s healthy civic behavior without an obvious reward.
As a nation, we are looking for our next dopamine fix. This has led us to the doorways of at least two different realities. One leads to corruption and greed everywhere. And the other … wait. The other reality offers corruption and greed, too. Where we diverge is over the cause of corruption and greed. There’s plenty of blame to go around; the opposing party, “those people,” giant corporations, and Wall Street among too many to name. And guess what? When we assign blame “ over there,” we get a dopamine hit. Because it’s not me. Righteous or self-righteous feelings arise.
As a nation, we have short-circuited our collective chemistry. And like all addictive behavior, ruin will follow unless we stop looking for our next fix and start addressing the pain, the trauma, the reality that we are all responsible. The United States will not be healthy until we reset our national chemistry – including normal amounts of dopamine for healthy behavior.
Why have we succumbed to an addiction-fueled culture where we would sacrifice our country?
Social media algorithms have made our fixes easier to get. Count the reactions on our own posts. Over 50? Dopamine hit. Like or “angry face” another’s post? Dopamine. Share a post to find your people? Dopamine and more dopamine. Video games likely deliver dopamine even faster. (I’m not a gamer, but have read some articles about it.)
At an ever increasing pace, Americans go for the dopamine fix, before anything else. It might be the news, our mobile devices and social media, it might be the next election or campaign. It might be the next battle in the Senate. Dopamine rules us as political junkies.
How might we start breaking our addiction to political junkie dopamine? We might start with a personal inventory of which behaviors lead to a healthy or unhealthy nation.
Unhealthy civic behavior:
- Watching or listening to conflict entrepreneurs who hook us to enrich themselves.
- “Stirring the pot” like a conflict entrepreneur just to get a reaction.
- Yelling at anyone because you are frustrated. This includes ranting on social media.
- Retweeting some outrageous misbehavior.
- Sharing disinformation.
Healthy civic behavior:
- Adopt a “do no harm” attitude.
- Engage only when you can contribute in a healthy way.
- When you are triggered, take a break and walk away. Manage yourself.
- Amplify the positive on social media 10x more than negative or angry content. Or resolve to not air or engage in grievances on social media.
- If pointing out injustice, ask for accountability and avoid blaming others.
- Shun the conflict entrepreneurs and do not honor them with your time.
- Attending local meetings with elected officials and honoring the dignity of others, regardless of your agreement or disagreement with their views.
- Be willing to change your mind when new information warrants it.
When I’m challenged by friends who watch conflict entrepreneurs and engage in the blame game, I ask what they want to happen and how it might impact their life. I remember that most people want to live a safe and meaningful life in community with others. We want to leave the world a better place than we found it, and have some material comfort.
This is how I get my dopamine hits; through connecting around our shared humanity. Not an absence of tension, but seeing others’ fears and hopes as connected to mine. I see our shared journey towards a just society.
Healthy dopamine comes from deep connection, exercising our (civic) muscles and knowing we make a positive impact on those around us.
Let’s get healthy together. One day at a time.
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.