Fitch is the president and CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation and a former congressional staffer.
Our nation’s capital is known for many things — but good management practices are not among them. Stories regularly surface of bizarre tales of harassment and abuse by members of Congress. An Instagram feed a few years ago unearthed dozens of stories by staff outing less-than-desirable managers and members for their bad practices. But what about the good leaders and good managers?
Like any profession, Congress actually has quite a few exemplary office leaders. And the beneficiaries of these role models are not just their staff — it’s also their constituents. When a congressional office can retain great talent, sometimes over decades, the quality of the final legislative product or constituent service rises immensely.
Two members of Congress who exemplify this quality are the winners of the 2024 Congressional Management Foundation’s Democracy Award for Workplace Environment — the “Life in Congress Award.”
The Democratic winner, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (Ill.), has a saying she repeats to her team: “What’s the point in working for a senator’s office if you can’t work to improve things you care about?” She’s passionate about hiring staff with a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences because she truly values hearing about issues and solutions from as many perspectives as possible. She also knows that if her staff succeeds, the state of Illinois and her constituents will succeed as well. To that end, the office hosts yearly staff retreats and conducts quarterly formal check-ins for staff to connect and communicate with their supervisors. The office set up a novel year-long mentorship program that includes matching a new staffer with a longer-tenured employee for confidential advice and guidance. The program also provides formal training and monthly group check-ins.
The office boasts a “passion projects” initiative, which encourages staffers to spend time on projects they are passionate about regardless of their portfolio. Additionally, the office has a dedicated staff member who leads a diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility committee, which hosts “lunch and learns” with guest speakers and helps ensure that the office and the senator herself are approaching their work through a DEIA lens. The Duckworth has also worked hard to make sure that staff who are caregivers for family members feel supported, as she is always cognizant of the pressures staff in similar circumstances to hers are facing.
The Republican winner, Rep. Don Bacon (Neb.), operates his office with the understanding that if you put your people first and empower them, they will put the mission first. His office offers benefits include a flexible telework policy, compensatory time off and three office-sanctioned fitness breaks per week. The office has the best staff retention rate and the smallest turnover index number in the entire Nebraska delegation, and 11 staff members have served since Bacon’s first term over seven years ago.
The ability to focus on the mission in an open-door and collaborative environment is one of the primary reasons that the congressman also was recognized by the Center for Effective Lawmaking as the most effective Republican House member in the previous Congress — and why he is a previous Democracy Award winner (for the best constituent services). At any given point, there are almost always staff members enrolled in educational programs at the graduate level. In addition, the office frequently helps staff members get accepted into various fellowship programs. The office staff work with interns on actual legislative matters and the robust internship program also includes multiple one-day field trips, hosted by the chief of staff, to locations such as the National War College and Annapolis for the purposes of gaining a broader understanding of the history of American government and its various departments.
Probably one of the most amazing anecdotes about the Bacon office stemmed from one of staffer’s brush with death. Suffering from a rare disease, the staffer needed a new liver. Four of his office colleagues (including Bacon) offered to donate. That kind of esprit de corps doesn’t happen by accident, and the intentionality of Bacon and his team to create the best work environment results in a better workforce and better results for his constituents.
It may be hard to connect a well-run government office with tangible benefits for constituents, but I can attest to seeing first-hand accounts of this happening daily, especially during the pandemic. When constituents badly needed services, some facing nearly life-and-death choices, the seasoned, well-run congressional offices delivered, making a huge difference for the people they serve.
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.