Hyten is co-executive director of Essential Partners.
Abortion is one of the most polarized topics in American politics — one side favors access, the other side favors restriction. Simple enough.
However, Americans themselves hold nuanced, complex, sometimes contradictory perspectives on abortion. It is a peculiar irony that the complexity of those views also creates the circumstances for polarization. People have had vanishingly few opportunities to talk about abortion in their lives. It is so often taboo. Just as often, people find it too difficult to articulate their views and they choose silence instead.
This reticence has allowed the most extreme voices to dominate in the media, in our politics and in our communities.
On abortion, few, if any, political leaders express the views of the people they represent. But we can change that together.
The Supreme Court has handed down a decision that effectively reversed Roe vs. Wade. This turns one polarized national conversation into fifty distinct deliberations unique to the history, context, and communities within each state.
As our nation navigates conversations about this topic in the coming months — whether in direct response to the Supreme Court draft decision or not — it is essential to honor both the complexity and the urgency around this conversation. It is also vital to the future of our nation that we empower the voices of everyday people, so they are able to articulate and advocate their genuine, nuanced views.
To support new conversations about abortion, Essential Partners has published a guide designed to invite citizens to make space for conversations about abortion that bring in deep beliefs and complexity. To transform the conversation in their individual context, it is crucial that we allow space for whatever comes up for people, even (or especially) if it is messy.
For a copy of the guide, go to:
https://whatisessential.org/resources/guide-dialog...
Laura Chasin, the founder of Essential Partners who co-led confidential leadership dialogues about abortion for the better part of a decade, often spoke of “liberation through structure.” It is so easy for conversations on this topic to go off the rails and devolve into unproductive venting or harmful, polarizing rhetoric—especially in times like these.
Structures and norms like the ones suggested in our new guide may feel awkward, but they also create the possibility of a new kind of conversation. You have to step out of your normal way of speaking and relating to one another in order to free yourself of dysfunctional, polarizing patterns.
This guide is designed to help you give any group an opportunity to reflect on the impact of the draft Supreme Court decision in a way that builds empathy, understanding, trust, and compassion — and then, if you choose, to help people wrestle with how they want to come together as a community to support people in a variety of ways.
Within this resource you will find general tips as well as guidelines and prompts for more formal dialogues that you can hold in your classroom, bible study, book club, institution or community space.
If this guide doesn't meet the needs of your context, if you have questions about the use of this guide or if you want some additional support and collaboration, please reach out for a free consultation with an EP expert.
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.