Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is out today with a forceful denunciation of the sweeping "good government" legislation Democrats plan to push through the House this winter – a primer for the talking points his fellow Senate Republicans will also use to explain why they plan to bury the bill on their side of the Capitol.
"House Democrats won't come to the table and negotiate to reopen government, but they've been hard at work angling for more control over what you can say about them and how they get reelected," the Kentuckian wrote in an op-ed for Friday's Washington Post. "They're trying to clothe this power grab with cliches about 'restoring democracy' and doing it 'For the People,' but their proposal is simply a naked attempt to change the rules of American politics to benefit one party. It should be called the Democrat Politician Protection Act."
McConnell rose to his top leadership job a dozen years ago in part because of, not despite, his passionate campaign that had for years successfully derailed the last major overhaul of campaign finance law, in 2003. And his approach then remains instructive about his operating style now.
He's content to lead fights of resistance that seem to infuriate large segments of the electorate, but only so long as he's confident he's doing the bidding of a clear majority of his fellow GOP senators. If a critical mass of Republicans concludes the shifting politics of an issue requires a more accommodating approach, McConnell is almost always willing to direct the course correction toward compromise.
His emphatic resistance to the package being touted as a top priority of the new House majority, dubbed HR 1, is highly likely for reasons beyond his own well-known view -- that the First Amendment dictates a minimalist government role in regulating campaign behavior and the flow of political money. McConnell has almost certainly assessed that an overwhelming number of his 52 GOP colleagues oppose the bill as well.
The majority leader focused his critique on four areas.
The proposed new disclosure rules for donors and regulatory powers for the Federal Election Commission, he asserted, would amount to "giving Washington a clearer view of whom to intimidate and leaving citizens more vulnerable to public harassment over private views."
Creating federal subsidies for campaigns that raised money in small amounts, he said, means Americans would be compelled to watch "their tax dollars to be used to bankroll robocalls and attack ads, including for candidates they dislike."
Making Election Day a holiday for federal workers and creating incentives for them to help at the polls amounts to "extra taxpayer-funded vacation for bureaucrats to hover around while Americans cast their ballots."
And an array of provisions designed to create national standards for the conduct of elections, which remain largely regulated by the states, "seems tailor-made by Washington Democrats to help their D.C. attorneys descend on local communities, exploit confusion and try to swing elections."
Overcoming a McConnell filibuster of any legislation now requires 13 Republicans to break ranks and join a presumably unified Democratic bloc. Very few in the GOP have an obvious electoral reason to bolt, however. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Susan Collins of Maine are up for re-election next year in states Hillary Clinton carried, but incredibly they are the only two GOP senators currently representing states colored blue on the 2016 Electoral College map.
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.