Anyone on the frontlines of the effort to bridge America's partisan divides knows there is no silver bullet for this work — no one game-changing app or intervention that will swiftly transform the way Americans engage with each other across our divides. Shifting social norms and fostering a pluralist ethos in America requires a multipronged approach and a long-game mindset.
But we also know our democracy hangs in the balance and we don't have the luxury of time. So as we elevate and scale standout initiatives that are achieving measurable success, we need to continue identifying untapped opportunities for widespread and dramatic impact on the problem of toxic polarization.
We believe popular entertainment is one such opportunity. TV shows, movies, short-form videos and other types of on-screen entertainment offer unique ways to reach Americans at scale, even those not already predisposed to want to bridge divides. Entertainment can play a vital role in popularizing new social norms around how we engage across lines of difference, and a growing number of entertainment content creators, Hollywood executives, social scientists and bridging practitioners are recognizing its power to do just that. Until now, these stakeholders haven't had a home or a way to find and collaborate with each other.
The newly launched Center for Entertainment & Civic Health is this home. The center aims to galvanize the entertainment industry to address declining civic cohesion and harness the power of storytelling to bridge our partisan divides. "Our country is at a critical moment, and entertainment can play an important role in helping bridge the gap between left and right in America. The Center for Entertainment & Civic Health is a new center of gravity for Hollywood to explore entertainment's impact on polarization and its potential to foster civic health and pluralist norms," said Dave Caplan, showrunner for the hit ABC show "The Conners."
On Oct. 16, the Center for Entertainment & Civic Health will host its kickoff event, a free virtual summit titled "Hollywood and Storytelling in a Divided America." This unprecedented convening will gather entertainment industry stakeholders from across the partisan spectrum under one virtual roof to explore entertainment's untapped potential to help fix a divided America. Some of the industry's most celebrated content creators, entertainment executives, bridgers, experts from academia, and leading nonprofit organizations will come together to explore the question "Can popular entertainment save a fracturing America?"
Hollywood has wielded the unique power of storytelling since its earliest days, but the last two decades have seen the industry fully embrace "social impact entertainment." The notion that content can both entertain and drive social change has gained traction throughout the industry at breathtaking speed.
We believe the time has come for Hollywood to tackle toxic polarization as an urgent social impact issue of its own. The same energy and talent that have been brought to bear on other critical issues in our society can be applied to our crisis of division. We've seen the role entertainment can play in advancing a range of social causes; now is the moment for the industry to explore the power of storytelling and entertainment to mitigate polarization and bridge deepening divides within our country.
Storytellers are among the most influential agents in our society; they can use their superpowers to help us see each other in new ways and imagine new possibilities for America. They can help us reimagine the meaning of "national unity" and reinforce healthier social norms around how we navigate our conflicts.
Renowned international peacebuilding organizations like Search for Common Ground have recognized the power of entertainment to transform intergroup conflict in conflict zones abroad for decades. As Americans, we're not accustomed to thinking of the United States as a conflict zone in need of peacebuilding interventions. Yet recent events have illustrated that we are not immune from the kind of domestic intergroup violence with which other regions in the world have long struggled. We have an opportunity to interrupt the cycle of escalating partisan hostility before further damage to our social fabric and institutions is wrought, and we would do well to examine examples of entertainment media being employed to reduce intergroup bias and hostility in conflict zones abroad.
Elevating toxic polarization as a distinct impact issue represents a unique challenge for Hollywood. While issues like climate change and racial justice neatly align with the priorities of an industry known for its more left-leaning predilections, polarization is different. Embracing the cause of depolarization and partisan bridge-building requires a different mindset and calls on stakeholders to think about their partisan "others" in ways that may feel unfamiliar. Individuals and institutions must be willing to commit to the goal of humanizing one tribe to the other.
The goal of this humanization is not to convince one side or the other to abandon its moral convictions or embrace an opposing ideology. Nor is it an effort to push Americans into the "middle" and away from bold positions on social issues. Rather, the goal is to create the necessary preconditions for rational debate and collaborative problem-solving. No one need leave their convictions at the door. If entertainment succeeds in this endeavor, the good news is that research shows there is more common ground to be plowed than either side recognizes now.
The economic and cultural forces that sustain and profit from polarization are strong. Are storytelling and entertainment powerful enough to combat those? We believe they are, and we're enlisting stakeholders throughout the entertainment industry to take up the challenge.
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.