Anderson edited "Leveraging: A Political, Economic and Societal Framework" (Springer, 2014), has taught at five universities and ran for the Democratic nomination for a Maryland congressional seat in 2016.
America should be moving toward a New Center. Our politics is extremely polarized, and we need a politics that respects the 30 percent to 50 percent of the country which does not align with pure versions of either of the major parties, let alone extremist right-wing and left-wing perspectives. With 43 percent of the country identifying as independents according to a recent Gallup poll, the national dialogue about our red-coat/blue-coat war remains a serious distortion.
The state of Maryland in recent years has been a laboratory of change, deliberately or unintentionally, on the part of voters and politicians. The legislature remains extremely Democratic, where both the House of Delegates and the Senate are ruled by supermajorities. Government House, the home of the governor, has been occupied by Larry Hogan, a moderate Republican. Hogan is thus not to be confused with polarized Republicans on Capitol Hill or extremely conservative Republican governors in a range of U.S. states.
Hogan has fought not to increase taxes and has been pro-business. He is one of the few Republican governors, and Republican politicians in general, who have sharply criticized Donald Trump, both as president and former president. Moreover, Hogan has compromised on budgetary and policy issues throughout his tenure as governor and set a basically calm tone for Annapolis politics.
The Democrats have pushed through major reforms on education and racial issues. They have limited power to affect the annual state budget – as they can cut but not add to the budget except via various indirect ways. Yet they have substantial power when it comes to passing bills about public policy. In their movement toward a New Center, the legislature and the governor frequently do not explicitly agree to major public policies.
The legislature overrides Hogan vetoes on important policies, like paid parental leave. And Hogan at times lets bills become laws without signing them, as he did with a renewable energy bill. In this pattern, the state has been moving in a New Centrist direction as the legislature and governor have pushed and pulled each other in directions they themselves have not always wanted to go.
Maryland, lore has it, is "America in miniature." We have: a combination of urban, suburban and rural life; the Chesapeake Bay as well as beaches, mountains, rivers, lakes and caves; a very high percent of African-American people and minorities in general; the very Democratic counties (Montgomery, Prince Georges and Howard) but the majority of the 23 counties typically vote Republican; the military bases; and now the biotech industry, Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky.
Maryland is a microcosm of the country.
The state government is neither New York nor Alabama, neither very blue nor very red. It is in the purple category although most Democrats statewide want to return to blue territory throughout the entire government and the Republican voters are hopeful they can retain Government House.
This will be a challenge with an impressive number of candidates in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, including Peter Franchot, Tom Perez, Wes Moore and Doug Gansler. Perez is a fighting liberal and former U.S. secretary of labor; Franchot, the popular comptroller, is an Annapolis insider who is quite progressive but hardly left-wing; Moore is a dynamic outsider with a fresh perspective; Gansler is a former attorney general who has strong progressive and moderate credentials.
Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, it is hard to argue with former Sen. Barbara Mikulski, who said that Maryland is no longer "cobalt blue."
The voters of Maryland, like the voters of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Illinois over the course of several decades, have frequently selected a Republican governor to either restrain or manage or lead the legislature. They have also elected supermajorities in both chambers of the legislature to push for progressive change on matters of education, health care, transportation and crime.
Because of its diverse population and its balance of industry and farming and tourism; because of its racial strife in Baltimore and progressive calls to fight crime and eliminate police brutality; because it is the home of former Gov. Parris Glendening's Smart Growth Movement as well as the National Anthem; and because it has been balancing progressive and conservative values the last eight years, Maryland is a model for the reshaping, renewal and redirection of America.
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.