Kevin Frazier i s an Assistant Professor at the Crump College of Law at St. Thomas University. He previously clerked for the Montana Supreme Court.
I took my mini Aussie doodle to the dog park to socialize. While he “connected” with other dogs through prolonged sniffs and ball chases, I did the exact opposite. I found an unoccupied corner, started a podcast, and made sure to avoid any unnecessary human interaction.
Upon reading this, my dad and others have surely rolled their eyes and chided, “Classic Millennial,” before going back to scrolling through whatever app they’re using—intentionally or not—to avoid human interaction.
I wish this was a “Millennial” phenomena. It’s not. Gen Z-ers spend upwards of four hours a day on their phone. Before Boomers celebrate their superiority, they need to look in the mirror…something that might prove hard given that they, too, are distracted by screens. Boomers average an hour on social media per day and outpace everyone else when it comes to consuming daytime TV.
Collectively, we’re all living through an “Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation,” according to the U.S. Surgeon General.
And, it’s our own dang fault.
We need to get off our armchairs, log out of our apps, and commit to being humans. It’s a simple agenda that won’t come about unless we get serious about being less lonely.
Step One: ban screens wherever your great-great-grandparent would have gone to see friends. Bar? No screens. Cafe? No screens. Dog park? You guessed it (yes, I know dog parks weren’t big in the 1920s, but let’s leave that aside for now). Some pioneering, Luddite institutions (oxymoron intended) have already instituted this rule. Check out the No Sweat Cafe in Helena, Montana for a case study. These sorts of institutions collect your phones upon entry, offer a box for you to place it in at your table, or plaster so many signs on the walls indicating their screen ban that you can’t help but feel your great-great-grandparent admonishing you when you try to sneak a look at a pointless notification.
Step Two: wear a nametag. You’re laughing. Good. It’s silly, but easy. If you don’t want to share your real name, fine. Pick any name and make it easier for you and for others to strike up a conversation.
Step Three: set up a “Screen Hour” and tell your friends about it. If your friends know that you only look at your phone from 7pm to 8pm each day, then, assuming they’re nice, they will try to limit their texts to that hour. If they’re really good friends then they might even follow your lead and adopt the same time for their “Screen Hour.” In the remaining 23 hours of screen-free humanity, your odds of making a friend will skyrocket.
Step Four: talk about the weather—by which I mean, don’t talk about politics. Some folks who, like me, want to revive our civic community, would disagree with me and urge people to talk more about elections, candidates, and issues. But, especially in the early stages of a friendship, a political comment that lands the wrong way has the potential to halt any progress along the path to “friend” status. You don’t have to talk about the weather, but you should start with something “easy”—something you likely share in common and something that your great-great-grandparent wouldn’t object to.
Step Five: use the F word. When you’re looking for a “F”riend, don’t be afraid to say so. It can be a little daunting to admit you’re looking for more friends. As someone who has lived in three states in as many years, I’ve gotten over that fear through repetition. I sure wish I had told that guy at that dog park with the bulldog that I could use a friend—we could have walked our dogs to a coffee spot. That opportunity passed, but I’ve resolved not to miss the next one.
You may think each of these steps is a bunch of baloney, to quote my grandma. That’s fine. My goal isn’t for you to follow Frazier’s Five Steps to Friendship. My goal is much more humble—just put your screen down when there’s a human in front of you; friendships will follow. And those friendships may be the foundation for a lot of other necessary progress—specifically, stronger communities. But I’ll leave my one-cent of wisdom on that topic for another day.
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.