André Thomas is co-host of Healing Race, and founder of Fortnum Solutions where he has a background in project management and using technology to serve corporate strategy.
Todd Levinson is co-host of Healing Race and co-founder of MATR, a tech start-up looking to bring meaningful conversations to social media. He has a background in peacebuilding, policy and psychology.
If you could ask any question to someone of another race, without fear of blowback or being shamed, what would you ask? What burning questions do you have about the role of race in others’ lives and in America? What questions about race have you held back from asking or do you think we need to discuss as a country?
Talking about race isn’t always easy. It can be fraught with landmines born of deep personal feelings and trigger blowback that can threaten relationships, careers, and reputations. But how can we resolve conflicts surrounding race - given the critical role they play in our larger national conflicts - if we can’t openly and constructively discuss our views about racial issues and the experiences that have shaped them?
That was the challenge faced by four guests on the Healing Race show. Their questions were compelling, sometimes even provocative, and reflected the kinds of questions many Americans likely ponder in the solitary confines of their minds… because too often in our culture we dare not ask the difficult questions or share the difficult views we hold about so contentious an issue as race.
So what did they ask?
Marcus, a Black conservative police officer from Texas, wondered why he was outcast from his Black community for deciding to become a cop. Wouldn’t you want “someone who looks like you wearing the uniform and doing the job?” His questions were all the more courageous with the video of Tyre Nichols’ deadly beating by Black officers having just been released the prior evening. Imagine the conversation that ensued.
Susan, a white libertarian who grew up in a Georgia town where the Klan was active, asked why, with so much talk about the need for conversations about race, someone like her gets shut down when they engage and share their different views, as she recently experienced.
Landon, a white moderate conservative with family roots in rural Utah, asked how we can put the racial past behind us and focus more on our future together and wondered what others saw as both valuable and upsetting about our U.S. history.
Marin, a Black moderate who consults on diversity, equity & inclusion strategy, asked what Landon and Susan had learned about Black people growing up, which moved every guest to think about and share the narratives that shaped their early thinking and how those narratives changed over time.
What unfolded was a “real” conversation, a human conversation, one that allowed us to see the people that exist beyond our preconceptions. We saw fears and resentments, empathy and epiphanies, differing views and common ground. We heard powerful stories, unexpected perspectives, and difficult questions. Most importantly, we saw minds and hearts open and a true desire to know each other better, learn from each other’s experiences, and make a human connection beyond our racial differences.
We saw Marcus understand the pain and anger felt by the Black community, their desire to feel like they “matter,” and their worry that they won’t get as much grace in police interactions; while we also saw Marin appreciate how police officers like Marcus put their lives on the line to serve their community and her hope for the day when Black Americans can look to police officers as role models and supports in the community without caution.
We saw Landon realize, after hearing Andre’s anxieties about not coming off as intelligent, how racial stereotypes can burden Black minds as they work extra hard to defy those stereotypes; while we also saw Andre’s skepticism about white motivations shift as Landon shared the genuine desire for diversity that exists in the workplace.
We saw Susan feel for Marin’s experience growing up having only seen white females as the standard of beauty; while Marin empathized with Susan being called out and dressed down for saying that racial progress has been made, asserting that white voices are very much needed and should be welcomed in conversations about race.
Finally, we saw Landon resonate with Marcus and Marin’s unexpected answer that they felt more like “victors” than victims in response to U.S. racial history; while Landon and Susan shared their desire that a deeper, more well-rounded racial history be taught in our country’s schools, as long as that history was not only seen through the lens of race.
The conversation demonstrated that we are not the simplistic, one-dimensional characters society projects onto us through the media and through the way we talk about one another. Our guests showed the deep emotion, shared humanity, and good will that exists in our country as they grappled with how race affects our lives, how it creates divisions in society, and how we can have better conversations about race and find a way forward together.
There has been an illusion of separation among the races perpetuated since the founding of our country. We have all been exploited by it, using it as a tool to wound each other physically and emotionally. The illusion keeps us in our racial groups, in our castes, in our heads, not supporting each other, telling stories of malice about each other, and preventing us from tackling our national challenges. When Marin, Marcus, Landon, and Susan came together, bearing their souls and minds through interactive questioning, their dialogue coalesced around one theme: to understand and be understood. There is value in discussing our feelings about race and racial issues in a way where no one is diminished and everyone is amplified.
Yes, race isn’t and shouldn’t be everything about how we interact with one another in this country. But race also isn’t just anything when it comes to the American experience and it is long past time to heal this wound.
We hope you’ll join the Healing Race show on that journey as a viewer, a guest, a supporter… and most importantly, a fellow traveler who seeks out and leans into difficult conversations that can be part of the healing race in our country. We also welcome you to our National Week of Conversation events - where we will cover how to have transformative conversations about race and discuss some of the most compelling and provocative clips from our show with you. To learn more about how to get involved, email us at info@healingraceshow.com, and you can enjoy our conversations here.
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.