Daniel O. Jamison is a retired attorney.
A Rebellion looms. Too many Americans have the attitude that if they cannot accomplish their aims lawfully and peaceably, they will resort to violence. This attitude apparently traces to Reconstruction when the organizers of the defunct Confederacy determined to regain the political power of their states, using lawful and peaceful means if they worked, but unlawful and violent means if necessary. With savage violence, they “redeemed” the South, ousting integrated state governments and denying equal rights to Blacks.
How can rebellion in the future be stopped?
A remedy for a lawfully elected rogue president who disregards the Constitution is impeachment and conviction in Congress, but only if enough responsible legislators are elected who would vote for both. If convicted, this president could refuse to step down. If supporters block civil authorities from removing this president, the military, under its oath to the Constitution, would presumably seek the removal. Given its long history as the ultimate protector of that Constitution, the military would likely overcome any dissent in its ranks.
The ousted president’s chosen vice-president might also “suspend” the Constitution, necessitating another impeachment and potentially the elevation of the Speaker of the House to the presidency.
Another remedy is the 25th Amendment but this is seemingly impractical. The president can deny a disability and start a process that would require two thirds of each house of Congress promptly to find against the president. If impeachment fails for lack of votes to convict, this will too.
If the rebellious president defeats impeachment and the 25th Amendment, military leaders may nevertheless feel bound to protect the Constitution.
What happens if the rebellious presidential candidate loses? Certain state legislatures could reject their citizens’ votes for the other candidate and throw their state’s electors to their candidate. They and their governors could defy state and federal court orders to reinstate the popular vote, calling out their national guards to prevent interference with what they have done. Their supporters in Congress would insist on counting these votes to deny the election to the other candidate.
Alternatively, or simultaneously, armed groups around the nation, reminiscent of the 1868 Ku Klux Klan’s reported 550,000 members spread across the South, could mobilize to prevent civil authorities from enforcing the law. A 1957 precedent shows how to subdue a rebellious state. At that time the governor of Arkansas defied a court order to integrate Little Rock High School and ordered Arkansas’s national guard to prevent it. President Eisenhower federalized Arkansas’ guard and sent in 1,000 troops from the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the court’s order. Eisenhower’s remarkable order stated: “the Secretary of Defense is authorized to use such of the armed forces of the United States as he may deem necessary.”
Historical precedent also suggests how to subdue rebellious armed groups. The Constitution gives Congress power to call forth the “Militia” to enforce the law, suppress insurrection, and suspend habeas corpus when rebellion and the public safety may require it. Habeas corpus requires an arrested person to be brought before a civilian court for release or a statement of charges.
In 1871, Congress temporarily suspended habeas corpus and authorized use of military force to put down rampant Klan violence. President Ulysses Grant promptly used the military to suppress the Klan. For about three years, the Attorney General brought thousands of criminal prosecutions for violations of civil rights. To obtain witness testimony, the suspension of habeas corpus allowed indefinite detention of persons threatening witnesses. Despite the difficulty of securing convictions in the South, a sufficient number of convictions and use of the military quelled Klan violence.
But once this pressure was removed, the evil resurfaced. Ron Chernow, author of Grant, notes a rueful Grant wrote in 1876 that violence in South Carolina, “is only a repetition of the course that has been pursued in other Southern states…Mississippi is governed today by officials chosen through fraud and violence, such as would scarcely be accredited to savages…How long these things are to continue, or what is to be the final remedy, the Great Ruler of the Universe only knows….”
America is similarly threatened today. While the 1871 precedents were a temporary solution, they may be instructive today.
We the people can avert the potential scenarios cited above if we overwhelmingly vote for responsible candidates willing to confront rebellion.
The Constitution is in our hands.
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.