“He who saves his Country does not violate any law.”
In February 2025, Donald Trump posted a quote attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte on Truth Social, generating alarm among constitutional experts.
“I am Oz, the Great and Terrible,” the Wizard of Oz declares from behind his curtain.
“In this country everyone must pay for everything he gets.” And, “I never grant favors without some return.” Is this the president speaking? It’s certainly rhetoric we have heard before. No, it is the Wizard in L. Frank Baum’s book, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”—which was published in 1900.
Before the 1939 film, “The Wizard of Oz,” starring Judy Garland, and before Gregory Maguire wrote “Wicked”—igniting a phenomenon in the theatre world and now in film, begging the question, was the “Wicked Witch” really wicked—there was Baum’s series of fourteen books about Oz.
So, what of this Wizard? What of this President? Are they as great and powerful as they claim? Or are they both charlatans, great pretenders who claim to have special powers to govern, to grant, to rule?
Yet—and this is a critical point—they have been ordained with this power by their citizens.
President Trump was voted into office a second time, taking the “swing states” to win the Electoral College. And the inhabitants of Oz, seeing a seemingly miraculous flying balloon descend on their city, declared the man in it a wizard.
Of course, there are other players afoot. Oz has witches, Munchkins, and most importantly, Dorothy and her companions, who ultimately challenge and expose the Wizard.
And we have a legislative and judicial branch, and most importantly, our Constitution. In this country, we are governed by a system of checks and balances. It is up to us all to remind each other, and the world, of that fact.
So, what is it that the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Lion want? And what does Dorothy want? They want the same things we do.
The Scarecrow wants a brain. We might wish for a more discerning one lately, one that will not capitulate to fear-mongering and rumor.
And the Tin Man wishes for a heart, presumably an “open” heart, encompassing more than his own small circle. Without such, life in Oz, in the U.S., or anywhere, becomes a cruel, joyless competition, devoid of true meaning.
The Lion needs courage. Don’t we all? Living is not for the faint of heart, in any age. Courage is the difference in every situation. Brains and a heart are essential, but without the courage to use them, they merely fester.
“My life is simply unbearable without courage,” the Lion declares. So are our own.
And of course, Dorothy’s greatest wish is to go home. It is Glinda, the Good Witch, who ultimately grants her wish. “Your silver shoes will carry you…. If you had known their power, you could have gone back the very first day.” (The “ruby” slippers were originally “silver” slippers in the book, but were changed to ruby to take advantage of the new color film in the movie version.)
So, Dorothy had it in her power all along to go home.
As we too, have it in our power to defend and protect our principles, our home. We may begin on the yellow brick road or the wrong road, and we may encounter wicked witches or be imprisoned, but we must keep going on our journey.
Lately, it does seem that our politics are swinging terrifyingly right, and there are those who act as the Winged Monkeys in Oz, willing to “obey any order” they are given. But the pendulum swings, and it will again. It always does.
We have all heard of rose-colored glasses, and there is justification in accusing the MAGA movement of refusing to remove theirs, instead of ordaining all that their “leader” does.
In Oz, the Emerald City was not even green. The Wizard confesses, “I put green spectacles on all the people, so everything they saw was green.”
But we cannot wear rose-colored glasses, or green ones. No distortion of facts, no fairy tales, will work in the end. We must envision our destiny, and live it out in the bright, clear light of day.
“What a world! What a world!” the Wicked Witch of the West screeches in the 1939 film, after Dorothy has thrown a bucket of water on her, and the witch melts.
Many would say the same regarding the state of our country and the world. Others would claim that we are at last approaching justice and common sense.
We must agree to disagree. But we do have a plan that has now stood the test of time, a map that can direct our path. What we cannot ever do is linger long in those intoxicating fields of scarlet poppies. We must not fall asleep.
Amy Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."
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.