In the 2020 election, I almost voted for a candidate from Oregon's Progressive Party. It was my first time voting since coming of age, and I was severely disheartened by the experience, if not all that surprised. You see, my Progressive candidate in all honesty had no chance of winning in the general election because independent and third-party candidates are suppressed by the Democratic and Republican parties. It often feels like the country is divided into Democratic and Republican sections with a tiny percent of voters in the middle that can't decide. At least, that's the narrative that I've been taught my whole life. But it couldn't be more wrong.
Democrats and Republicans have a monopoly — or more like a duopoly — on politics. These two monolithic parties shut out independent voters and other parties in uncompetitive ways. Their most blatant strategy of maintaining control over the government is through closed primaries.
Forty percent of the country. That's roughly how many Americans identify as neither Democratic nor Republican. On the other hand, about 30 percent of Americans identify as a Democrat and another 30 percent identify as a Republican, according to FiveThirtyEight. But when you look at national and local governments, Democrats and Republicans consistently dominate 100 percent of the seats. No wonder I was disheartened about voting for an independent or third-party candidate. For voters like me, it's an uphill battle to elect leaders from different parties even if they have popular support, simply because of the way our elections are run.
Independent and third-party voters are shut out in closed primaries, which are often the elections that really matter. That's why every election year, the Democratic and Republican parties tell these voters to join their party if they want a say. But independents and third-party voters don't want to join a major party in order to vote. Why should they? These are taxpayer-funded elections after all. The fact that independent voters continue to grow in number every year is testament to the fact that their strategy isn't working, it is just plunging us deeper into political dysfunction.
We often underestimate the impact that primaries have on the political playing field, but as the country becomes more and more polarized and sinks deeper and deeper into its liberal or conservative communities, many cities and counties that lean left or right practically guarantee that whoever wins their primary election will win in the general election. That means that while third-party and unaffiliated voters might feel as though their vote counts in the general election, the truth is that the winning candidate was already decided in the primary election.
To me, the single most frustrating thing about a two-party, closed primary government is what it does to our elected leaders. It reinforces the "us vs. them" mentality and encourages radicalization. I've seen our political leaders cater to their polarized voters, as these voters are the most likely to donate and show up to the polls. Once these far right and far left leaders are put in the same building, compromising on policy becomes practically impossible.
Moreover, independent candidates and third parties face a nearly impossible battle of competing with Republicans and Democrats for a variety of reasons, including the spoiler effect. This is when voters don't vote for their preferred candidate, and instead vote for a less preferred but more mainstream candidate simply to prevent their least preferred candidate from winning. (This is exactly what I did in the 2020 election.) It becomes a battle of who is the least bad candidate, instead of who is the best candidate.
That's messed up. Not only are voters like me compelled to register with parties we don't identify with and choose candidates we don't like, but we are excluded if we don't. Instead, we should have one big open primary where all parties and voters could give their input, instead of just the 60 percent of voters who are either Republican or Democratic.
That could be coming sooner than you think. More and more young Americans are registering as independents than ever before. We are tired of thinking only left and right. We think left, right, forward, backward, down and up. With open primaries and ranked-choice voting campaigns sprouting up, we are approaching a more representative democracy that benefits everyone, not just the political duopolies.
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.