Corbin is professor emeritus of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa.
According to the most recent data from Pew Research Center, National Election Studies, Gallup, ABC/Washington Post, CBS/New York Times and CNN Polls, only one-fifth of Americans say they trust the federal government to do what is right. The June 12 headline from NBC News article sums it up: “ Americans agree on one thing: DC isn’t getting the job done.”
Thanks to tainted social media, prejudice-laden cable news, biased left- and right-wing think tanks and the disinformation and misinformation provided by politicians and their parties, one can only surmise Americans are greatly divided.
The surprising reality is Democrats, Republicans and independents agree on more issues – about 150 – than they disagree.
Here are some examples:
Abortion: Sixty-one percent of Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases (Pew Research Center, June 13).
Gender issues: Gallup notes in a 2022 report that 71 percent of Americans support marriage between people of the same sex.
Gun control: Background checks are favored by 89 percent of the public. Banning assault weapons has 63 percent support, while 64 percent want to ban high-capacity magazines and 60 percent want a nationwide database to track gun sales (ABC News, May 27).
Immigration: Sixty-two percent of Americans feel immigrants strengthen the country; a complete reversal of the position expressed in 1994 (Pew Research Center, Jan. 31, 2019).
Voting: Data for Progress reveals 66 percent of voters want to prevent state lawmakers from overturning elections, while 60 percent support universal vote-by-mail and a majority want to make it easier to vote (Sept. 24, 2021).
Health care: Providing Medicare for all Americans to ensure everyone has health care coverage garners 69 percent support (The Hill, Apr. 24, 2020).
Cannabis: NORML reveals from its Apr. 8 research that 69 percent of Americans support legalizing cannabis plus 60 percent favor expunging cannabis-related convictions.
Racial justice: Eighty-six percent of citizens agree that racism is a problem and 87 percent believe books that discuss race or slavery should never be banned (CBS News, Feb. 22).
Taxes: An Oct. 16, 2021, Vox article notes 71 percent of voters support raising taxes on the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.
The Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland released an Aug. 7, 2020, report identifying nearly 150 issues on which the majority of Republicans and Democrats agree, including:
- Social Security: Raising the cap on income subject to the payroll tax to $215,000 or more.
- Poverty programs: Increasing funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
- Energy and environment: Reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2 percent a year and providing tax incentives to promote clean energy.
- Government reform: Overturning the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and regulating campaign financing.
- International trade: The United States should continue participating in the World Trade Organization and rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership that former President Donald Trump abandoned in 2017.
- Federal budget: Roll back the tax cuts from Trump’s 2017 tax bill, impose a 4 percent surtax on income over $5 million and add a 1 percent surtax on corporate income over $100 million.
Let’s face it. Polarization has largely been brought on by political parties wanting to be in control and – let’s not forget – ego-driven and power-hungry politicians.
Examine the 15 issues identified above and note if your legislator is working counter to the will of the people. If so, vote the bums out. If your legislator’s voting record is in accordance with the majority of Americans, do your level best to insure their re-election.
Americans of all political persuasions are together on over 150 issues. But, now – more so than ever – we must have legislators who represent us before their party. For them to do otherwise is a dereliction of duty.
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.