Anderson edited "Leveraging: A Political, Economic and Societal Framework" (Springer, 2014), has taught at five universities and ran for the Democratic nomination for a Maryland congressional seat in 2016.
In 2026 America needs a Declaration of Independents, one that will mark the 250th anniversary celebration of the Declaration of Independence. Yes, our great country, mired in deep conflicts, entrenched polarization in Washington, and pathetic hostility needs to turn to individuals and groups which are driven by an independent frame of mind to rescue us.
In the last Gallup poll 41 percent of Americans identified as independents. The independent frame of mind that is so sorely needed should not in itself reflect a particular ideological point of view. Thus it should not be a centrist point of view which reflects a middle ground between the Democrats and Republicans. Nor should it be a radical centrist point of view which reflects a unique synthesis of both parties or some standpoint that transcends them but still preserves core ideas from both. What is needed instead is a burst of independent candidates and organizations that stand for points of view that differ from the two mainstream parties. There might be six independent points of view, including libertarian, green, moderate centrist and radical centrist.
Ideally the independent candidates for office would win races and reduce the power of the two major parties. The upshot would be that Democrats and Republicans would face challenges from many independent perspectives, and they would lose many of the races. Attacked from so many points of view, they would not be able to withstand the onslaught.
This is ideally how things would evolve. The goal would not be to ruin one or both parties. Instead, it would be to put both parties in check and compel both parties to work with the independents in their district or state or nationally to reach tripartisan solutions to problems. Indeed, it is time to jettison the goal of achieving bipartisan solutions because it rests on the controversial assumption that there are only two legitimate points of view to be reconciled. This is not the case in the United Kingdom, France, Germany or Israel. We must strive to make it not the case in the United States.
The challenge will be to cultivate and celebrate an attitude of independence that motivates enough citizens to vote for the independent candidates without blasting the two major parties. For what is needed is not a war against the Democrats and Republicans but an honest departure from them. The reason this strategy might work over a five to ten year time period is that there would be no consistent target for Democrats and Republicans to bring down. There would only be a temperament to criticize, and it would be hard to criticize a temperament that revolved around freedom of thought and disappointment with rigidity, hostility, and dysfunction.
The attitude that would be targeted would revolve around what used to unite us -- a love of independence. The Declaration of Independents we need will rally around the value of independence that grounded our country 250 years ago. Whether the issue is the environment, guns, immigration, family policy, foreign policy or racial relations, we need a third force in American politics that will shift the focus from the boxing ring fight between the Democrats and Republicans to a challenge to both parties from multiple ideological points of view.
In the United States, what we need now is not so much multiple parties but multiple independent perspectives. Parties are organizational machines and are very useful for the Democrats and Republicans, especially for raising money. A frontal attack from another party is not likely to succeed. We need the same ingenuity which defeated the British in the Revolutionary War -- attack the enemy from a range of places at once using guerilla tactics. Head-on warfare would have failed against the stronger British armed forces.
Likewise today. You can't go after the Democrats and Republicans head-on. Instead, individual races need candidates with an independent temperament which stands in different ideological places. Together, however, these independent voices will gather steam and leverage the momentum of other independent candidates and groups. Gradually, the independent temperament will strengthen, until it becomes a third force in American politics.
Structural changes will be needed in the electoral system, including ranked choice voting and open primaries. But independent candidates and voters and moderates from both parties need a broader strategy to move forward. Although there need not be and should not be one orchestrating organization, a set of organizations, individual candidates and the media, traditional and social, can create the revolution.
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.