Daniel G. Newman has been one of the more important drivers of the money-in-politics reform debate in the 15 years since he created MapLight — a sprawling database that quantifies the connections between politicians, the businesses and industries that finance their campaigns, the policies they support, and the votes they cast. He remains in charge but branched out his summer by publishing a graphic novel that seeks to explain the full range of fix-the-system challenges: "Unrig: How to Fix Our Broken Democracy" (McMillan). It's his fourth book; the others were about speech recognition, the initial focus of his career. His answers have been edited for clarity and length.
What's the tweet-length description of your organization?
We expose money's influence on politics and fight online political deception.
Describe your very first civic engagement.
For years, Brown, the college I attended, had been raising funds from each graduating class to support financial aid for low-income students. In my senior year, some student "leaders" sought to direct those funds to other purposes that didn't support equity. I recruited allies and generated lots of campus press to counter this change — and the funds continued to go to financial aid.
What was your biggest professional triumph?
When I started MapLight in 2005, the corrosive influence of money in politics was not on most people's radar as one of the most critical issues facing our country. Now that our news stories and data have been seen, heard or read by millions, we've helped make money's influence on our democracy a top political issue nationally.
And your most disappointing setback?
I spent two years organizing to pass a 2004 ballot measure for public funding of elections in my home town of Berkeley, Calif. But the measure didn't pass. I was dejected, feeling like a failure for more than a year. I tormented myself. If only I'd reached out to more people. Or made one or two fewer mistakes.
I started MapLight to expose money's influence and help other reform activists be successful. Over the next decade, the Supreme Court ushered in even more money in politics, generating more energy than ever to change our broken system — including momentum for another local effort in Berkeley. My desire for change was just as strong, but I was held back by my past feelings of despair. What if I attempted another campaign and it lost? I realized I needed to separate my success as a person from the success of the campaign. That new humility, in the face of the uncertainty of politics, allowed me to try again. And in 2016, we won!
How does your identity influence the way you go about your work?
Early in my career I taught high school math and physics. I continue to see myself as an educator. I'm good at explaining complex concepts and ideas in understandable ways — which helps in my work of explaining our democracy's problems and engaging people in the reform movement. My new book does exactly this — in 250 pages of comics!
What's the best advice you've ever been given?
Hire only people who are outstanding across all aspects. The cost and pain of hiring the wrong person is so great, leave positions unfilled until you find someone excellent. I got this advice a few years after starting MapLight, and that's what propelled the organization to take off.
Create a new flavor for Ben & Jerry's.
"Collective Action" — the more people eating it, the better it tastes.
What is your favorite TV show or movie about politics?
"The Candidate," the 1972 dark comedy starring Robert Redford as he seeks a Senate seat in California.
What's the last thing you do on your phone at night?
I'm big on boundaries between work and home, and between online and offline, so I aim for "airplane mode" a few hours before bedtime.
What is your deepest, darkest secret?
This may come as a surprise, given my profession, but I don't love reading books about democracy. Too often they are dry and pessimistic. I wanted to write a book that I would be excited to read myself. "Unrig" is that book.
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.