Molineaux is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
I heard myself talking to one of my male colleagues in a “bossy-mom” voice, as if he were a child who needed instruction. At least, that’s how I sounded to myself. While I cringe and my hackles go up when I am patronized, I never stopped to consider how I may be sounding to others. Do you?
Internally, I don’t feel like a bossy-mom. My intention was to provide efficient instruction so we could take action. Of course, it was recorded. When I played it back, I felt embarrassed that I would ever address a colleague with that tone. Fortunately for me, he knows my heart and doesn’t take offense. Me? I’ll work on it.
I’m a constant work in progress. Within the USA, we are also a work in progress.
Over the last 50-plus years, we’ve had it easier than at any other time in human history. Our quality of life, in aggregate, has improved tremendously. Marketing has driven our economy to new heights – and new degradations, too. What could we have to work on, still?
A couple of ideas come to mind. Notably, accountability for our actions and responsibility for our communities. Where 50-plus years ago we were more connected to places and knew our role within our communities, today many of us enjoy the flexibility to live or visit anywhere. How do we stay connected in a seemingly boundless world? This is what makes us, the citizens of the United States, a work in progress.
It is time for our role as citizens to evolve; to adapt to 21st century life and changing circumstances. What is needed today for our country to grow? And what citizens must we become? Here’s my list:
- Caring involvement, especially where we live.
- Relationships with people different from ourselves.
- Conflict resolution or mediation skills.
- Knowing what we want and why we want it.
- Trust in each other.
- An attitude of service to others without sacrificing ourselves.
- Media literacy.
- Commitment to be an active citizen, from voting to volunteering.
Back to me using my bossy-mom voice – as I reflect on when I’m most likely to use this tone, it’s when I’m impatient. We have so much to do in defending and strengthening our democratic republic that I don’t want to waste time or effort. Our nation is precious – and it’s still child-like in many ways. I am bossy because I want our nation to be better.
We were bequeathed a nation that’s very birth was the ideal of liberty and justice for all. It’s never been fully enacted. It’s time to make it so.
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.