Chang is the co-founder and CEO of GenUnity, a civic wellbeing nonprofit. Reid, a rising senior at Yale majoring in history, is a special assistant to the CEO.
The Fourth of July was painful for many Americans. The first half of 2022 brought the war in Ukraine; mass shootings in Buffalo, Uvalde, and across the country; and most recently the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade. In the midst of these upheavals, feelings of celebration felt out of touch with this somber moment in our nation’s story.
At the same time, this week provides the perfect opportunity to reflect on the legacy of July Fourth as the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a visionary statement of not only what the United States of America can become but how we can build our more perfect union.
Our Declaration of Independence sets out a revolutionary vision: equality as the bedrock of freedom. In pronouncing independence, the founders justified their revolutionary action with universal principles of human equality. Not only that we are all created equal, but each of us is the best judge of our own happiness. And, as a result, it is only through the practice of understanding each others’ lived experiences and engaging as equal co-owners in the design of a system of self-governance that we can build a society free from oppression and tyranny.
A community for everyone has to be built by everyone. Recently, however, this foundational principle feels evermore distant due to extreme attacks on voting rights, rampant gerrymandering and the everyday exclusions of those who may not share our views – whether in schools, social settings or the workplace.
Fortunately, as the Declaration lays out, we have the power to change this through the practice of everyday democracy:
- Take your passion for an issue and seek out those across your community who are experiencing or addressing it.
- Reflect carefully on whose perspectives you haven’t heard and ask yourself whether your understanding of someone else’s perspective is rooted in proximity to their lived experience.
- Build diverse relationships rooted in compassion for each others’ shared humanity.
- Act strategically to drive change with the best of what you know today, while welcoming continuous feedback and the opportunity to learn from those most proximate to the issues
With each rep, you’ll strengthen your democratic muscle, deepen feelings of agency, purpose and resilience, and spark positive change in your community.
Admittedly, in the context of our hyper-polarization and the fierce urgency of now, the practice of everyday democracy can feel like placing a feather on the scales of justice. The hard truth is this is what democracy demands. Democracy asks us to be vulnerably honest about our differences, to extend compassion in conflict, and to believe that the honest effort of millions working together to build a better society will actually result in one. There is no escape from this uncomfortable truth.
Yet in the face of these seemingly insurmountable odds, we find faith in an equally powerful truth – that we have no choice but to try.
We can do what we must because we must do what we can. In choosing to practice everyday democracy, we persist and invite our fellow Americans to join a lifelong project to uphold our inextricable ideals of equality and freedom.
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.