Joan Blades, co-founder of Living Room Conversations and MoveOn.org, is left politically. John Gable, co-founder of AllSides.com, is lean-right politically.
Sometimes the left and right agree on things for opposite reasons. Sometimes for the same reason. And still, nothing happens.
Many on the left are concerned about the potential health risks of chemicals in our products. Some on the right are concerned about that too.
Many on the right are concerned about government regulations that are wasteful or actually help special interests to the detriment of the public. Some on the left are concerned about that too, especially when the government and big business collude.
Take the case of earbuds. It may surprise you to learn that there may be flame retardants in your earbuds. According to Arlene Blum, a biophysical chemist and executive director of the Green Science Policy Institute, “manufacturers were initially told that they needed to add a flame retardant for their earbuds to meet revised standards”. But tests showed no safety benefit from adding these flame retardants.
Why would this standard exist? Every day, all around the world, independent committees meet in stuffy conference rooms, share a spread of pastries, and devise codes and standards for the performance, safety, and efficiency of all kinds of products in your home. These standards are voluntary for manufacturers, but many are adopted by governments as regulations. Often, this process is as esoteric and technical as it sounds. Other times, under the cloak of boring bureaucracy, chemical companies hijack these committees and shape the codes to boost the sales of their products at the expense of our health.
How do they do it? They pay consultants to sit on these volunteer committees and influence the outcome. Academic scientists, public health advocates, and others with an expertise and stake in product safety usually don’t have the time or budget to fly to places like Geneva or Vladivostok to participate. As a result, motivated industry hired guns have free rein to draft the codes as they please.
Perhaps the most egregious exploitation is by the flame retardant industry. Gaming this system is how flame retardant producers have driven the use of their harmful chemicals in products ranging from nursing pillows to building insulation despite providing no fire safety benefit.
It all dates back to the 1970’s when smoking was common, and consequently, house fires. Most agree that products like furniture and TVs should be designed to minimize the risk of starting or spreading a fire. The flame retardant producers seized on that concern to push for fire-safety codes that could only be met with their chemicals. The problem is that no one in these committees asked whether the chemicals actually worked in these scenarios. Unfortunately, the answer is often no.
No one realized how harmful these chemicals were. Just one flame retardant, a PBDE that was used in furniture, has caused a loss of 3 to 5 IQ points in American children, not to mention uncounted cases of cancer, neurological and reproductive impairments.
The chemical industry still isn’t satisfied. For example, flame retardant producers have been trying to drive the International Electrotechnical Commission to set a “candle standard” to protect electronics from ignition from a very small open flame. By its design, this standard would lead to the use of hundreds of millions of pounds of unneeded flame retardant chemicals each year in electronics casings. This is despite the fact that the National Fire Protection Association and others have shown that such a standard would not provide a fire safety benefit.
Even when the lack of fire safety benefit is blatantly obvious, the chemical industry has prevailed in setting its preferred standards. For example, thanks to companies like Dow, some US home-building codes require ( California is an exception) that below-grade insulation be treated with potentially toxic flame retardants. Below-grade insulation is below the ground, where there is no fire source to ignite and no oxygen to maintain it.
Recently, Underwriters Laboratories announced a $1.8 billion initiative, part of which exaggerates fire risks and promotes an unnecessary furniture flammability standard that would require costly tests done by Underwriters Laboratories. In real-life fires, passing open-flame tests does not provide a meaningful fire safety benefit, but being required to meet these standards can lead to the use of harmful flame retardant chemicals.
We need to find ways to safeguard standards-setting against industry manipulation and government regulation that is not in our best interests. Many on the right and left agree that this problem needs to be addressed, but the problem is driven by actions behind closed doors that are not sexy enough to get news coverage and popular attention. So how do we fix it?
Shine a light on the problem, and demand our elected representatives take action. There are many elected officials that want to bridge divides to address common problems and to reinstate the practice of bi-parisanship. Let’s provide the foundation upon which they can do this.
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.