When the history books write about Donald Trump, they’ll have a lot to say — little of it positive, I’d be willing to wager.
His presidencies have been marked by rank incompetence, unprecedented greed and self-dealing, naked corruption, ethical, legal and moral breaches and, as we repeatedly see, a rise in political division and anger. From impeachments to an insurrection to who-knows-what is still to come, the era of Trump has hardly been worthy of admiration.
But don’t tell that to his loyal supporters, for whom no one stands in higher esteem, despite Trump’s obvious shortcomings. Where we see an embarrassment, they see the fulfilment of a promise. Where we find horror, they find jubilation. We are truly living in two different Americas.
It’s remarkable that Trump can so clearly be two opposing things depending on whom you ask, and that stark contrast is often revealed in moments where he’s waging war on perceived enemies.
This week, Trump’s Justice Department, under the leadership of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, announced it had indicted former FBI Director James Comey over an Instagram post in which Comey had photographed seashells on a beach to spell out “86 47.”
To be clear, “86” is common restaurant jargon to “nix” a menu item, and “47” refers to Trump. Blanche’s DOJ is claiming that this amounted to a threat of violence.
If that sounds silly, it’s because it is. But Trump’s got it out for Comey, and he tried this once before. This indictment, like the last one, isn’t likely to result in a prosecution.
But the indictment was met with predictable praise from MAGA loyalists, for whom Trump’s revenge campaigns are a titillating projection of his strength and a righteous use of presidential power.
For the rest of us, they are just another humiliation for Trump and the country — a weaponized and compromised DOJ that’s already seen one AG fired for failing to throw enough Trump opponents in prison, and a president who is pathologically consumed with old and irrelevant grudges.
Trump fans love it when he’s playing the bully and swinging at the people he’s told them to hate, from Jimmy Kimmel to Sen. Mark Kelly to New York Attorney General Letitia James.
For all of his efforts at projecting strength, Trump never looks weaker than in these moments, when he’s pursuing these personal vendettas — and losing.
Just in the past year, Trump’s DOJ has lost numerous high-profile cases it sought to use to appease the president’s bloodlust.
It failed to get an indictment against six Democratic lawmakers, including Kelly, over a video they released regarding illegal orders.
Grand juries rejected cases against protesters in Washington and elsewhere, including trying to charge a man with felony assault for throwing a sandwich at an officer.
Attempts to prosecute James, former CIA Director John Brennan, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell have thus far failed.
Trump has also failed to successfully sue a number of opponents, from Hillary Clinton to the DNC, the New York Times to CNN.
Judges have overruled his attempts at silencing news outlets, blocking a Pentagon policy limiting reporter access, ordering the White House to lift restrictions on the AP after Trump had banned the news agency for refusing to use the term “Gulf of America,” and blocking an executive order to cut funding for NPR and PBS.
Trump has lost so many of these petty fights, it’s hard to imagine why he keeps going back to the trough, only to suffer more humiliating losses.
And yet somehow, his fans don’t read these abject failures the same way the rest of us do. Where we see impotence and incompetence, they still see power and strength.
I can’t make it make sense, but I’m fairly confident that the history books, at least, will get it right.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
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.