Originally published by The 19th
Standing next to the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Tuesday, Rep. Terri Sewell of Alabama introduced House Resolution 4, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, for the fourth time.
As the country marks 101 years since the ratification of the 19th Amendment on Wednesday, the franchise remains fragile. Women of color like Sewell are on the front lines of fighting the 21st century voter suppression efforts sweeping state legislatures — and of helping to lead the push for federal voting rights legislation that is likely to stall anew in a deeply divided Congress.
In the modern-day battle for suffrage, many women and marginalized people are fighting on two fronts: They're attempting to defend hard-fought gains even as they scramble to expand the electorate. Some see the progress of the past imperiled as their successes are met with conservative backlash.
The suffrage anniversary raises questions of who is American, who gets to have a say and who gets to participate in our democracy, said Notre Dame University political scientist Christina Wolbrecht.
“This is a broad fight about who deserves to have power in this country," said Wolbrecht, author of the book “A Century of Votes for Women." “People do not like to lose status."
Last year's suffrage centennial was a stark reminder of the people who were excluded from that victory in 1920: the Black women who stood shoulder to shoulder with White suffragists, only to be sacrificed as the latter group prioritized their race over gender; Latinas and Asian women who were blocked from the ballot with discriminatory language restrictions; Native Americans who were not yet even recognized as American citizens. Suffrage remains a work in progress for so many, including transgender Americans who face barriers at the polls.
Today, women are the majority of the U.S. electorate, and Black women are the most loyal and consistent voters in the Democratic Party. A record number of women and LGBTQ+ people serve in Congress and the current administration, including several who hold pioneering leadership positions.
Vice President Kamala Harris has used her bully pulpit as the second-most powerful person in the country to push for increased voter participation and to call for the passage of federal voting rights legislation to counter state suppression efforts. And she has met with civil rights leaders, including women like Black Voters Matter co-founder LaTosha Brown, Janet Murguia of UNIDOS and NAACP Legal Defense Fund President Sherrilyn Ifill, who are urging federal action on the issue as their focus shifts from campaigning to holding elected officials accountable.
In the Justice Department, two women of color are tasked with enforcing voting rights. Vanita Gupta is the agency's third-highest-ranking official, and Kristen Clarke oversees the department's federal civil rights division.
In the first seven months of the administration, the DOJ has announced plans to expand civil rights enforcement, sued Georgia over its elections bill and launched an investigation into allegations of discriminatory policing practices in Phoenix.
The suffrage centennial in 2020 also coincided with a push to suppress voters in the midst of a pandemic. As lots of voters turned to absentee voting as a COVID-friendly way to cast a ballot, Republican lawmakers in many states sought to limit the number of drop boxes available in communities and to shorten the window for early voting — tactics that made voting more challenging.
Still, Black women in particular helped to organize and turn out record numbers of voters in November, many of whom stood in long lines at risk to their public health to participate in the 2020 election. They turned out again to deliver the Senate to Democrats in January special elections. Latinas were also part of a winning coalition for Democrats, with organizing efforts that led to critical victories in states like Nevada and Arizona last fall.
For Black women, as with the original suffragists, their efforts were tied to support and advocacy for their communities on issues including health care, education, the economy and inequality.
Melanie Campbell, head of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, was among several Black women arrested last month on Capitol Hill at a protest pushing for the passage of Senate Bill 1, the For the People Act, before the legislation died earlier this summer.
The bill, which would've limited the influence of money in politics and protected access to the polls, failed to gain Republican support. Democrats were unwilling to jettison the filibuster to unilaterally pass the bill into law. Campbell and other civil rights leaders have met with the administration and attempted to appeal to Democratic holdout Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
Much of the work Campbell does echoes that of Black women suffragists dating back to her Delta Sigma Theta sorority sisters who marched for voting rights more than a century ago. That she follows their example has been both discouraging and inspiring.
“The fight for inclusion never ends," Campbell said. “It can be burdensome, but we have to keep doing it. If we lose this battle, we lose our fight to build power and for self-determination."
The House is expected to vote on H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, when Congress resumes on August 23, but the legislation continues to face long odds in the Senate.
Ifill said the country is at a critical juncture when it comes to voting rights.
“Failure is not an option because the stakes are so high," Ifill said in a conversation for The 19th Represents, a virtual summit taking place this week. The full conversation airs on Friday.
“The voter suppression that we have seen over the last few months is in direct response to the extraordinary mobilization of voters that happened last year and the turnout," she added. “Litigation will not do it alone. Organizing can't do it alone. We need this legislation."
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.