Kluver, a rising sophomore at George Washington University, is an intern with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and Made By Us.
If I asked a random person on the street today, “What are your voting plans for the midterm elections in just a few months?” I would probably receive strange looks. People would respond, “What’s that?” Or some would likely say, “There’s no point in voting as my voice doesn’t matter anyways.”
But FiveThirtyEight found that 60 percent of people who “rarely or never vote” said the 2020 presidential election results really mattered to them. So why aren’t they turning out to vote?
For years, Americans have been subjected to one of the most malignant cases of voter apathy in any liberal democracy. Candidates and parties ignore voters and take them for granted. Turnout barely cracks 55 percent in presidential elections, and 40 percent in midterms. Yet, many elections are decided by mere hundreds of votes, meaning an individual's vote actually can change the outcome.
Young people have become the face of this stereotype. They are often portrayed as lazy or apathetic, and those who do vote are presumed to be bastions of the Democratic Party and progressive principles. However, this is not necessarily the case. In my internship this summer with the Smithsonian and Emerson Collective, I got an up-close view of how people 18-30 years old engage with history and civics through Made By Us, and I knew there was more to the story to explore. Luckily, a new report from CIRCLE at Tufts University has a wealth of data, FAQs and explainers to back it up.
For example, the 2018 midterm elections saw people 18-24 years old vote at a record 28 percent, almost double from 2014, with said percentage expected to increase as more of Generation Z comes of voting age.
The real issue lies in systemic barriers to voting. Among a sample of voting-age Gen Z who did not vote, 30 percent of youth of color said they had issues with presenting voter identification at the polling place — double the rate of white respondents. The same goes for those who had difficulties finding transportation to polling places or faced long lines; youth of color were noticeably more impacted. And 39 percent of those polled overall simply did not know where to vote.
More barriers exist for the non-college educated. As of 2016, those without any college degree were 20 percent less likely to vote than their peers who attended college. Similar gaps are shown between youth of color and white youth as between non-college-educated and college-educated youth. Non-college educated young people are subject to long lines, lack of transportation, voter ID issues and so on. Plus, media reinforces these principles, often failing to address the sheer importance of youth participation in democratic processes.
Young people are engaged, fired up and ready to shake the system to the core. But we need to build a system that supports their voting activity and knowledge. So, what can we do to solve this? The answer is civic education – built for real life.
Generation Z remains civically engaged using one primary tool: technology. In 2020, according to CIRCLE, over 50 percent of Gen Zers said they tried to convince peers to vote, often by sharing online petitions and other resources for their peers to see. This marks a 17 percent increase from just four years prior. Even then, there exists a large gap between youth who are registered to vote and those who actually turn out. They’re registered and they’re telling friends to vote, but turnout is still lagging. We need to find ways to make voting feel meaningful, fun and effective.
Let’s start by looking at areas of life Gen Z isn’t skipping out on: school, friends and online communities. Increase investment in civic education programs in high schools teaching students about parties, candidates and the electoral system. Have every eligible student register to vote in class — online! Provide them the resources through social media (especially digitally) to request ballots, find polling places and research candidates. Have their favorite celebrities, Twitch streamers and idols reinforce the importance of voting. If young people have educational resources provided to them in the format they are most versatile in, maybe American society will start to see real change, one youth vote at a time.
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.