Eric Holder's organization to combat political and racial gerrymandering is about to acquire Barack Obama's political organization.
The coming merger, between the former attorney general's National Redistricting Action Fund and the former president's Organizing for Action, guarantees that perceived abuses in the world of electoral mapmaking will gain unprecedented prominence during the coming campaign – in time to help shape the once-a-decade redistricting of the House and state legislatures.
But the consolidation also guarantees the burst of additional energy, and money, will be all about benefitting the Democratic side of the debate. And the potential for further partisan polarization of the issue will do nothing to draw the collaboration of Republicans, who will be essential to any widespread depoliticization of the process.
"Simply put: this is a leftist power grab that will undoubtedly bring on more election-time shenanigans," Cheryl Chumley wrote in The Washington Times today. While Holder "says it's all about fairness and equality and democracy and justice," she added, "as every good conservative knows: those are all leftist code words for killing conservatism, one district at a time."
The main consequence of the merger is that Holder's group will have access to Obama's database of supporters, donors and volunteers. The newly enlarged organization plans a series of small house parties across the country March 23 to launch All On The Line, its campaign to promote redistricting reform and participation in the 2020 nationwide headcount.
"The integration of OFA with NDRC, into our redistricting effort, is going to help us have activists all over the country who are fighting for fair maps and more representative democracy," Holder told The Hill. "The integration of OFA with NDRC is an organizational action, and it's really just designed to effectuate that which OFA has always stood for, which is to engage citizens at the local level."
Holder says he will be legally barred from using the Obama database if he decides to run for president.
The NDRC plans to focus its energies on establishing politically competitive and demographically balanced House and legislative maps in six increasingly competitive states where mapmaking is the province of politicians (Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Colorado and Texas) as well as four bellwether states where bipartisan commissions control the process (Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Arizona).
Republicans controlled the redistricting process in seven of the states after the last census. Pennsylvania's delegation is now split, nine Republicans and nine Democrats, after the state's top court declared the earlier map a partisan gerrymander and ordered a new one. In the other six, the GOP holds 65 of the 101 House seats.
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.