Hyten is co-executive director of Essential Partners.
During his 40-year career in the military, my father served under seven presidential administrations through countless policy decisions, three wars, innumerable budget votes and huge changes at every level of society. He says that what makes this country special is the fact that he swore an oath to serve not a person, a party or even the state, but to the Constitution of the United States — an oath to uphold the rights and institutions of democracy.
A strong democracy, though, needs more than free elections and enshrined civil rights. As the great American thinker John Dewey argued, democracy is not merely a political institution. It is a way of life. It’s a way of living with one another, being able to agree and disagree, embracing our different perspectives and individual histories.
“Unless democratic habits of thought and action are part of the fiber of a people,” he wrote, “political democracy is insecure. It can not stand in isolation. It must be buttressed by the presence of democratic methods in all social relationships.”
The violent insurrection that took place on Jan. 6, one year ago, was not just an attempt to halt the peaceful transfer of power. It represented a collective failure in the practice of our democracy, a warning that we have failed to keep alive those fundamental democratic methods in our social relationships.
And we know that Jan. 6 was not an isolated incident. Over a third of young people in America believe they’ll witness civil conflict in their lifetimes. That is astonishingly tragic. We need to make sure it is not a prediction. It shouldn’t be controversial to say we should work like hell to turn back the tide, repair our social fabric, heal our communities and snuff out the threat of political violence on a larger scale.
At Essential Partners, we equip communities, schools, congregations and institutions to build a more perfect union, one founded on trust and belonging. We envision an America where we can belong no matter our identities or beliefs, where we can be heard even if we’re in the minority, where we can vigorously disagree without violence.
If you want to be a part of real and lasting change for our country, we need to invest in the health of the communities where we live and work. We need to heal the broken relationships and mend the frayed trust. Here are three things you can do right away:
- Talk to the people you love about the issues that matter most with honesty, curiosity and compassion. Politics, religion and social issues can no longer be off limits. Extremism takes root in isolation and loneliness. Work within your trusted communities to make space for difficult conversations. Practice disagreeing with people you love and care for. Practice holding onto those relationships even when you differ. If you need support and tools, browse our resources, join us for a workshop or schedule a free consultation.
- Foster a culture around you of collective discernment and collaborative decision-making. In your workplaces, schools, congregations and institutions, invite people to think about what they need to be a lone voice, to share a minority view, to offer a perspective that may be hard for others to hear. Find out what people need to be resilient together, to care for themselves, and to disagree in ways that do not diminish a people’s experiences and identities. Our lives are intertwined. We share responsibility for the health of the whole community.
- Search for seeds of hope in your community. You cannot do the hard work of hope when your heart is depleted. Hope is vital. You can find it when neighbors of different faiths share food on a holiday. It’s there when people on opposite sides of the political divide enjoy a high school basketball game together. And when you lose hope, let someone else come forward, someone who can carry on while you replenish yourself.
You are not alone in this work. There are thousands of people around the country who are changing the way we talk about politics, shared values and identities. I am convinced that the bonds we forge in compassion will be stronger than the forces tearing this country apart.
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.