If Sam Daley-Harris ever retires, it won’t be any time soon. He confides, with a smile, that he just turned 78. And while that may seem fitting for an age when some of the most powerful politicians are octogenarians, his batteries seem to hold a better charge than most.
Success will do that to you, and Daley-Harris is among the most effective advocates and activists in the nation. That’s true, even though you probably haven’t heard of him.
I sat down with him via Zoom earlier in December. This wasn’t the first time. I have written before about the effectiveness of his “transformational advocacy” form of lobbying, which turns ordinary volunteers into mini-experts capable of talking to community, state and congressional leaders and to editorial writers. But this seems different, coming as it does near the dawn of a second Trump administration. He doesn’t flinch when I ask whether he will have to change tactics. When your underlying strategy is to develop lasting relationships with the people you lobby — relationships that last far longer than the issues of the day — there is no need to do much adjusting.
Relationships matter
“The volunteer who is building a relationship over the last five years isn’t going to dump that relationship,” he said. “That’s their pipeline to change.”
Call it the secret sauce for successful lobbying.
Years ago, Daley-Harris founded a nonprofit called “Results.” As I have written before, it’s an organization that lives up to its name, playing a key role in the decline in preventable child deaths worldwide from 40,000 per day in the early 1980s to 13,800 per day in 2021.
He outlines this in his book, “ Reclaiming our Democracy,” which will be available in a new paperback edition Jan. 14.
Back in 2011, Results gave me an award for my reporting on issues related to global poverty and hunger. The organization has connected me numerous times with Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and current interim prime minister of Bangladesh, who established a microcredit program — giving small loans to the poor and teaching them how to start businesses — that has lifted thousands out of poverty.
Changing the world
But these aren’t the reasons I keep writing about Daley-Harris and others who lead the organization. It’s because of the way they quietly go about changing the world.
This formula, and Yunus’ method of incorporating capitalist methods in his fight against poverty, has resonated with Utahns over the years. It offers permanent solutions, not handouts.
And that seems to work no matter who is in the White House. Daley-Harris reminds me that, in 2019, the Trump administration had called for a 29% cut in federal funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS. Rather than give up, Results volunteers used the relationships they had built with members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, to their advantage. Those members of Congress signed letters of support that were sent to congressional leaders and Mike Pompeo, who was secretary of state at the time.
Instead of a 29% cut, the administration ended up signing a 16% increase.
Musk and DOGE
Time will tell whether that momentum can continue in a Washington where Elon Musk is charged with making cuts that enhance government efficiency. Anyone who thinks clearly about the mounting national debt knows how important that effort is, no matter who is leading it, and what a mountain it would be to conquer. And yet, there are vast differences between cuts that eliminate waste and cuts that eliminate opportunities to save lives.
In any event, Results volunteers will keep making their case. As Daley-Harris’ book says, they will be “unreasonable.” Not hard to work with, but “profoundly, unshakably committed to a big vision.”
When they run into a public official who won’t support them, these volunteers are trained to ask, “What would it take to change your mind?” Then, “Could you say more about that?” And, finally, “Why do you think that is?”
Compare this to traditional advocacy, which may involve ineffective protests, form letters or petitions. Daley-Harris said only 3% of congressional staffers say form letters are effective, while 94% say the same about in-person visits from informed advocates.
That’s the secret sauce. Daley-Harris tells glowing stories of regular people who return from their first meeting with a member of Congress — something they never envisioned themselves having the courage to do — feeling a new sense of confidence and hope.
Many organizations merely ask for signatures on letters and monetary donations. Daley-Harris changes people.
When the subject returns to whether he ever will retire, Daley-Harris talks about how his mother lived to be nearly 101. “So, who knows?” he says.
But when it comes to transformational advocacy, the most important thing is keeping the recipe for the secret sauce alive.
How this activist will adjust to the Trump administration was first published on Deseret News, and republished with permission.
Jay Evensen is the Opinion Editor of the Deseret News.
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.