Copenhaver, a former mayor of Augusta, Ga., is founding Partner of Starts With Us and author of “ The Changemaker: the Art of Building Better Leaders.”
During a recent healing service at my church, I was asked by the two priests officiating what I would like for them to pray for before they anointed my head with oil. I almost couldn’t believe what I was asking for when I simply replied, “Please pray that our nation gets through the midterm elections with no political violence.”
In the wake of the senseless attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, I now pray that political violence (across the ideological spectrum) hasn’t sadly and sickeningly become our “new normal.”
Having served nine years as mayor of Augusta, Ga., I can attest firsthand to the fact that politics are not for the faint of heart and have always involved negative rhetoric. During my time in office, there was a seemingly endless stream of issues our local government dealt with that became heated, but never turned truly dangerous. Even in the midst of our most controversial issues, I continued to intentionally interact with people at the grassroots level in all areas of our city in order to keep my finger on the pulse of our community. I was always aware that I had vocal detractors but at no time did I fear for my safety. When I exited office nearly eight years ago, I would have never imagined the dangerous state our nation finds itself in during a critical juncture in history at a national and global scale.
I must admit that as an American citizen and a former public servant, I’m extremely concerned with the state of our democracy, and I know I’m not alone. A recent Starts With Us and YouGov poll found that 87 percent of Americans are tired of how divided we are politically, and a CBS News poll found that 72 percent of Americans believe democracy and the rule of law are under threat. Today, bipartisan agreement on any major issue seems to be extraordinarily difficult to come by. Though our two major parties are split over just what it is that’s threatening our democracy they are able to agree that it is in fact under threat: According to a Quinnipiac University poll, 69 percent of Democrats and 69 percent of Republicans believe America’s democracy is on the brink of collapse.
So, what is the greatest threat to our democracy? When posed this question by Anderson Cooper in a recent “60 Minutes” interview, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates answered by saying, “extreme polarization.” He went on to say, “The greatest threat is found within the two square miles that encompass the White House and the Capitol Building.” Whether or not you align with Gates politically, we should all find the words of a Washington insider sobering.
While serving in office, one of my primary objectives was to act as a bridge builder in bringing our city together on common ground. I kept at the forefront of my mind the fact that I served 200,000 citizens, some who voted for me, some who voted against me and some who didn’t vote at all but all of whose needs I needed to value equally. I also had a diligent focus on consensus building and recognizing the differences of my elected colleagues while treating them with dignity and respect. During our time working together we were able to attract over $1 billion in economic investment creating thousands of jobs, build many new public buildings, and create an award-winning revitalization initiative in the historic African American neighborhood of Laney-Walker/Bethlehem. It wasn’t always pretty – government never is – but I’m proud of what we were able to accomplish by working together across any perceived lines of difference, political or otherwise.
It’s encouraging to see bridge-building organizations following a similar ethos to the one I championed in office, and to see them working to mend our frayed society. One of these, Starts With Us, is working to help Americans understand their agency by fostering what they affectionately call “The Three C’s” – curiosity, compassion, and courage – as daily habits to overcome the polarization, blind tribalism and dehumanization threatening our democracy.
I recently joined Starts With Us for “man on the street” interviews here in Augusta. I spent hours talking to a diverse group of locals to get their take on what’s causing the divides in our nation and what we can all individually do about them. We approached each person and conversation with the Three C’s, and the experience was eye-opening. We’re constantly told how divided we are, how dire the state of affairs is (which is true to a certain extent), but we are actually more aligned than we think. Some of the common themes to come out of the interviews in each city were: People are upset about our divides, they feel we need to listen to each other with respect for opposing views, they think it’s important we treat each other with civility and people are simply tired of polarization in general.
This experience reinforced for me that it is not politicians, or one political party, that will heal our divides. And I say this as a former politician. It literally starts with us – every single one of us – to recognize our agency and step into it. That might look like thinking twice before commenting on social media, taking a deep breath before engaging in a political conversation, taking a step back before making assumptions about someone because of a campaign sign in their yard. It might seem small, but these everyday actions can have a tremendous ripple effect – from our homes to our communities, to our cities, institutions, politics, our nation.
If we can each take on the personal responsibility to treat our fellow citizens with curiosity and compassion while having the courage to have difficult conversations we can, and we will, change the dangerous course extreme polarization has set our nation upon. I still believe in our United States of America, but in the meantime I’ll keep on praying.
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.