Lockard writes regularly for The Courier and has published several short stories and poetry.
In history’s most reprinted newspaper editorial, 8-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Sun in 1897, asking for a definitive answer as to whether there is a Santa Claus. While Virginia’s letter questioned the existence of a mythical figure, it showed more political acumen than a thousand politicians and analysts could spew out. It has to do with the spirit of humanity and, when applied to our country, the spirit of our nation.
So let me offer a modified response: “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. And yes, Virginia – and our other 49 states –there is a United States of America.”
Of course, there are ample issues for disagreement and dissension in the United States, often intensified by a political system embracing extremes. Human rights issues, racial equality, gun legislation or the lack thereof, abortion, how our children are taught, even how we define an individual – all fodder for argument. Families not speaking, friends on the outs, right’s violations and accusations, injustice. Not to mention controversial or bungled alarms raising more questions about our country’s leadership role in the world. The left going further to the left, the right veering further right. And every person absolutely believing he or she, or they, are right! We have all been affected by the “skepticism of a skeptical age.” (To quote from the Sun’s response to Virginia.)
Santa Claus and the United States have much more in common than at first glance. That “jolly old elf” and our nation both started as a dream, the embodiment of an idea. And both are sustained by that dream. They may have morphed into skinny mall Santa or been corrupted by contentious claims of “this land is my land and only mine,” but both exist through belief. As Virginia wondered about Santa over a century ago, this holiday season many are wondering about our country. But the core of the United States is much more intangible than its Constitution and laws. Its strength is the underlying belief in it, and that requires defending.
We all love stories. It is the real “story behind the story” when we immerse ourselves in the power of belief. So, who brings the gifts?
Is it not more important to recognize them? And not just our own gifts, but the whole array our families and communities possess through our citizenship? How much better to abide by that most old-fashioned of sentiments and believe we are “blessed” to live in this country.
Santa Claus and our nation have also this in common:. No matter how many letters we send to the North Pole or how many expletives we spew about what is wrong with the country, neither will act as “Amazon’s Wish Fulfillment Center” on steroids. Getting everything we want under the tree is impossible, as impossible as pleasing all of the people all of the time in our vast and diverse country.
Francis Pharcellus Church, the veteran newsman at the “Sun” who answered Virginia’s letter, wrote: “[T]here is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man ... could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance ... push aside that curtain ... to the beauty and glory beyond.”
Don’t we all love patriotic anthems and holiday carols for their hopeful message of belief in something bigger, whether it is our country or Santa Claus or God? The strength of our nation is not embodied in its headlines and “breaking news.” It is in the hearts of its people. Which is exactly what Church wrote, assuring Virginia of the truth of her belief: “In all this world there is nothing else so real and abiding.”
What’s wrong with the United States? Plenty.
But what’s right with it? Plenty more.
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.