Orekondy is an attorney originally from Australia and is the Coalitions Director at Rank the Vote. The views expressed here are his personal opinion.
Many of us in the democracy reform movement see a need to fight authoritarianism.
While this need is obvious, such a framing puts us at risk of merely fighting the symptoms and not curing the disease.
To find the solution to authoritarianism, we must understand its causes.
First, American democracy is not representative. It should surprise none of us that alternatives to democracy are being considered by a public starved of meaningful representation. The solution to this is clearly democracy reform, yet achieving this on a large scale requires much deeper levels of organizing than the pro-democracy movement has (yet) been able to muster.
Second, we need to recognize that this isn’t a uniquely American problem. Authoritarianism is experiencing a surge of popularity across the world. The cause of this likely has deep roots in globalization. Since the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher’s idea that there is no such thing as society, only collections of individuals, has seeped into every nation and economy, shredding what was left of community, atomizing us all and stripping us of our collective power.
We are now a collection of 8 billion individuals, taught that the only path to self-worth, fulfillment, security, and happiness comes through our ability to clamber over one another up the economic ladder, and throw down anyone who gets in our way.
It should be no surprise that the planet has revolted against this philosophy of extreme individualism by asserting the most visceral forms of collective identity. Racism, sexism, fanaticism and fascism are being espoused more openly in public and exhibiting high levels of political organization. The authoritarian impulse is, at its heart, an expression of desire for community, and the adoption of whatever communities are immediately available.
To cure authoritarianism, we must meet the need for community. This is done most easily at the local level, as that is where individuals most often connect to each other and find shared values. It is on top of such communities that we will find the organizing power to win democracy reform.
As advocacy organizations, we need to begin facilitating connections between our people on a local level. While people form all sorts of groups on the local level, from sporting groups to your local Dungeons and Dragons group, the organizations with most potential for democracy defense are constituency groups (based on shared ethnicity, religion, political values, etc) and advocacy organizations (single or multi-issue groups).
The process of forging such local groups into a singular community would best be achieved by bridging organizations, which have a process for creating common ground amongst disparate and often conflicting groups. While bridging organizations have often focused on bringing together individuals with conflicting opinions, they would be well served to partner with civic organizations in their area as well and attempt to forge relationships between their members. Ideally, these conversations would result in concrete action plans, geared towards strengthening the local community and the defense of democracy.
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.