Corbin is professor emeritus of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa.
Conventional wisdom, verified in conversations with your neighbors, friends and even strangers, holds that contemporary American politics is deeply polarized. Rachel Kleinfeld of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace notes, “Some scholars claim that Americans are so polarized they are on the brink of civil war.”
But the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection and ensuing lawsuits prove that a political civil war already exists. The headline of a Bloomberg op-ed political writer Francis Wilkinson, sounds a clarion bell: “ The Only US 'Civil War’ Will Be a War on Democracy.”
These alarms are nothing new. Research by the American Political Science Association notes that divisiveness started in the Senate in the mid-1950s and in the House of Representatives 20 years later. The presumptive 2024 presidential candidates are not liked by 60 percent to 70 percent of the voters. Both reference the Nov. 5 election as a democracy-versus-dictatorship decision point.
Gallup noted in January that 43 percent of voters consider themselves independent and the Republicans and Democrats equally divide the remaining population. Odds are the GOP lemmings will vote – regardless of research and legal findings – for Donald Trump and the Democratic Party conformists will vote for Joe Biden. The independents, who do their research, will determine who will lead America for the next four years.
Odds are also great that political parties will most likely tell their card-carrying members and foes from the “other side” a combination of disinformation, misinformation and propaganda – hoodwinking in orientation – and a smattering of truth.
Much of the time during political races we’re bombarded with massive and even conflicting information. No matter how hard we try, it’s difficult – if not impossible – to decipher truth from fiction. It’s during turbulent times like these where freethinking citizens seek voting guidance and defer to experts’ opinion.
Social science experts in political science and politically oriented research scholars participated in a late-2023 study, titled “The 2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey,” that ranked the presidents and gave some insight into experts’ thoughts on this election.
Here are the paramount research findings from specialists who study American presidents for a living that should give voters some compelling guidance:
- Biden was ranked as America’s 14th greatest president; Donald Trump came in dead last at No. 45. (FYI: The United States has had 46 presidents with Grover Cleveland serving as the 22nd and 24th; researchers count him just once.)
- Experts in presidential politics who identified themselves as conservative-oriented and Republican ranked Biden considerably higher than Trump for presidential effectiveness.
- Trump was identified – by far – as the most polarizing president, seven spots higher than Biden.
- Biden was acknowledged as the sixth most under-rated president while Trump came in eighth on the overrated list.
Research conducted in 2022 by the Siena College Research Institute – revered for their unbiased research and valid findings – corroborates the APSA’s findings. The institute ranked Biden as the 19th best president and Trump as – again – No. 45.
As the Los Angeles Times noted, should a Biden-Trump rematch occur, voters will be in that unique position of knowing how both candidates performed while they were in office to protect and defend America.
Between now and Nov. 5, be independent – like nearly half of the voters – and do your homework. Choose the candidate who you are convinced will demonstrate accepted norms of presidential leadership, keep America as the leader of the free world, preserve our constitutional rights, promote bipartisanship, respect laws of the land and the judicial system, keep our global trade alliances, support our military, stand up against CRINK (China, Russia, Iran and North Korea), and maintain America as a democracy versus falling into dictatorial-authoritarian control.
What would you be most proud of telling your family 10, 15 or 20 years from now? That you blindly followed the order of your preferred political party in the 2024 presidential election, didn’t vote or were a freethinking voter who seriously researched the candidates and determined America’s future?
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.