Molineaux is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
Half of our political class is delusional. There’s an old adage in the marketing business that goes, “Half of all ad dollars are wasted. The problem is, we don’t know which half.” This quip came to mind recently as I was thinking about the culture and narrative war we are living through and our inability or unwillingness to agree on observable facts without interpretation.
In 2018, 89 percent of Americans said that they want both parties to try to find places to compromise. The American public clearly wants something better from our leaders but the question is: What, if anything, are they willing to do about it?
Like the European crusaders who fought to liberate Jerusalem or the revolutionaries in 18th century France and 1930s Germany who built an ideology on liberating their people from oppression, the political class in the United States has been captured in the delusion of “saving the nation” from the forces of evil. On one hand, there is the evil of authoritarianism; on the other, socialism. The political class on each side claims themselves as the warriors of liberation. Russia’s encroachment and now invasion of Ukraine’s territory is their proxy war – protectionists and freedom fighters, battling for the soul of the world. But are they?
What if they are both wrong?
Considerable research has pointed to the “exhausted majority,” those Americans who don’t vote for a variety of reasons, ( here, here and here). These citizens want to get on with their lives, loving their friends and family without tip-toeing through political landmines. Businesses would like to get back to serving their customers without feeling internal and external pressure to make statements about politics and social issues. If we want a better future for our nation, we need everyone to do their part. If our democracy is to work, and perhaps even survive, every resident, citizen and neighbor must realize they can make a difference.
If the political class cannot lead then it is up to the exhausted majority to engage and offer a course correction. One of the many reasons people do not engage is their mistaken belief that their vote doesn’t matter and their perspective won’t be represented. History shows us that We the People can make a difference. Unions helped course-correct businesses from unsafe and abusive practices in the last century. American citizens can course-correct the political class by voting. Given our gerrymandered districts, voting in the primary is critically important. Given that less than 25 percent of eligible voter votes in primaries, your vote is even more important. We’ll need three things to make a course correction happen.
- Enact automatic voter registration and easy access to voting for all eligible citizens. ( The Heritage Foundation shows 1,165 convictions of voter fraud since 1982 – so let’s stop the pretense that voter fraud is widespread or election changing.)
- Open primaries and allow people to vote for their chosen candidate, regardless of political party. Does this cause discomfort? Please ask yourself why. One person, one vote is the foundation of democracy, why not in primaries, too?
- Be friends with people who are different from yourself. American innovation comes from our diversity. When we stay in homogenous groups, our thinking is more likely to become extreme and deepens our delusions.
I live in the D.C. area. I attend meetings with the political class every day and am frustrated with what I see. These people are my friends and colleagues. But we need your help to co-create a better future for us all. Let’s end the delusion of the political class that believes they are in charge. If they are, it’s because you fail to use the power of your vote.
Please vote in EVERY primary and general election this year. YOU are the course correction we need.
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.