There was a time the Republican Party believed in policies and principles. Conservatives genuinely believed in democracy and America, and not the cynical new version that requires its citizens to hate each other. And they believed in a contest of ideas.
The concept of competing for the soul of the nation with intellectually rigorous ideas and admittedly populist rhetoric became foundational to American politics and in particular movement conservatism later on in that century.
In a speech at CPAC in 1985, President Ronald Reagan boasted of the right’s recent dominance as a result of that competition. “Now, we’re not in power now because [the left] failed to gain electoral support over the past 50 years. They did win support. And the result was chaos, weakness, and drift,” he said. “Ultimately, though…we are where we are because we’re winning the contest of ideas. In fact, in the past decade, all of a sudden, quietly, mysteriously, the Republican Party has become the party of ideas…. All of a sudden, Republicans were not defenders of the status quo but creators of the future.”
And it was this way for some time, when conservatives believed that if given the opportunity, they could win over the country on the power of their ideas.
But in the era of Donald Trump, Republicans have decided competing is no longer useful or necessary, and they’re out of good ideas.
In some ways, they’re not wrong. Polling for any number of Trump’s “ideas,” from the Iran war to tariffs to burying the Epstein files are wildly unpopular and Republicans would lose that competition if judged solely on their merits.
But rather than even bother persuading, they’ve opted for other less democratic and more cynical pursuits to win elections.
The latest is Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund, which will award allies and Trump supporters “compensation” for what the Trump DOJ is calling weaponized lawfare against them.
That means, presumably, that Jan. 6 insurrectionists, some of whom committed crimes at the Capitol, including assaulting police officers, could apply for and win taxpayer dollars as a form of political reparation.
One way to view these payoffs is that they’re a blatant bribe to buy MAGA support at a time when Trump is unpopular and making unpopular decisions that are impacting his own voters.
The GOP redistricting orgy is another example of Republicans simply giving up on winning voters over. Trump and his cronies in Congress love to boast about how America is now the “hottest” country, thanks to him, but if that were the case, wouldn’t they just go out and sell that to voters before the midterms? Instead, they’ve spent millions carving out new districts all over the South. That’s hardly a reflection of a party that’s confident in their ideas and their message — rather, it’s a party admitting, we can’t win it unless we rig it.
Trump’s media fights are about more than just his fragile ego, too. They’re another tell. In trying to coerce new Trump-friendly mergers, to get detractors fired from Fox and elsewhere, to sue media outlets for critical coverage, Trump isn’t just telegraphing his deep insecurities, he’s tacitly admitting he can’t win with a free and fair press.
Trump, the consummate salesman, isn’t even bothering to sell voters on his economy or his war anymore. He’s just lying about both, and hoping loyalty to him will be enough. But just in case it isn’t, Republicans are doing every craven thing they can to tip the scales and go around the voters.
It’s sad to watch how far the party of Reagan has fallen, but today’s Republican Party has unequivocally waved the white flag in the contest of ideas, and they’re just hoping we’re all too stupid to notice they’re no longer even asking for our vote.
GOP Waves White Flag in Contest of Ideas was originally published by The Tribune Content Agency and is republished with permission.
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.