Nationally recognized voting rights advocate Desmond Meade, who has helped thousands of former felons like himself regain the right to vote, was again denied a pardon from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday.
At the same time DeSantis rejected Meade's pardon, the Republican governor also approved changes to the clemency process that could expedite rights restoration for people with past felony convictions.
Floridians passed an amendment in 2018 to restore voting rights to the state's 1.4 million ex-felons, but legislative and logistical barriers have kept many disenfranchised.
As president and executive director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, Meade has been instrumental in the fight to restore voting rights to ex-felons in Florida. Two years ago he was recognized by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world after spearheading the 2018 ballot measure campaign.
Since experiencing drug addiction, homelessness and a felony conviction in 2001, Meade has turned his life around and earned a law degree. But due to his felony record, he cannot become a member of the Florida Bar unless he receives a pardon.
This is the second time DeSantis has denied Meade a pardon. His request was first rejected last September.
DeSantis said he denied Meade a pardon due to his dishonorable discharge from the military three decades ago. "As a former military officer, a dishonorable discharge is the highest punishment that a court martial may render. I consider it very serious," he said.
But Meade says he was a victim of political infighting because his pardon request was supported by Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried. As Florida's only statewide elected Democrat, Fried is seen as a potential challenger to DeSantis in next year's gubernatorial election.
Fried, who's also a member of the state's Clemency Board, has been critical of DeSantis' handling of rights restoration to former felons since the amendment's passage three years ago. Following the governor's decision on Wednesday, she decried the denial of Meade's pardon as "hypocritical grandstanding."
"This Governor continues denying rights to a deserving Floridian in Desmond Meade on the basis of a long-ago military dishonorable discharge, but had no issue with appointing a Chief Administrative Judge who had been discharged for poor conduct from the Navy," she said in a statement.
"At the end of the day, the decision not to grant me a pardon is purely a political decision and I just happen to be a casualty of a war that's going on, a disagreement that's going on between the governor and our commissioner of agriculture," Meade told reporters in Tallahassee on Wednesday.
In the same meeting in which pardons were considered, DeSantis and the state Clemency Board also approved changes to expedite the clemency process for former felons. Those who have paid all their fines and fees can now apply for full rights restoration without needing a hearing before the board. Officials said this will streamline the process to reduce the backlog of cases.
The changes also waived the five- and seven-year waiting periods implemented in 2011 by then-Gov. Rick Scott.
While it's unclear how many Floridians will have their cases expedited, Meade said the new rules will help make the process less cumbersome and lengthy for thousands of returning citizens. He added that this victory outweighed his personal loss.
However, issues still remain with the state government's poor record-keeping of outstanding fines and fees for ex-felons. Because many don't know what they owe, if anything, they have been unable to have their voting rights restored.
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.