Molineaux is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
Each day, I’m reminded that, while I expect most systems to work seamlessly, they are no longer one-hundred percent reliable. When my internet goes down or my phone locks, I’m annoyed by the inconvenience. I feel anxious because words are weaponized; changing meanings almost overnight. Or how some words may have different meanings depending on the culture. I need to be better at acknowledging gender pronouns so I don’t accidentally cause offense. Through this change, I drift into nostalgia, remembering a past that wasn’t so personally hard to navigate or filled with seeming landmines. And I have compassion for those who have always been challenged to “code switch” for my comfort. I’m getting a small taste of what others have lived through.
While this time feels like a breaking down of the old, no-longer-effective systems, it also offers the potential to break through to a new culture that works for us all. We are currently in the uncomfortable place in between. We are seeking an innovative shift in our culture; one that is centered on humanity, and fulfilling the promise of our founding documents – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – for all people.
I have also been pondering the process of innovation and our willingness to let go of nostalgia since seeing a meme that stated:
“No amount of innovation applied to a candle would have produced a light bulb.”
The problem of illumination after the sun goes down has been solved by fire-based solutions for millennia. Yet, I would never trade the ease of flipping a light switch to go back to candles and lanterns. My nostalgia for candlelit dinners doesn’t mean I want to return to olden times.
Similarly, I wonder why are we holding onto our nostalgia for a more white/cis-centric society, that obviously doesn’t work for everyone? Is it the fear of the unknown? Is it an underlying racial bias? Is it the concern for the loss of power? Because it’s more comfortable for some of us? Better that we innovate a new society that works for all.
When inventing new illumination methods, scientists began by conducting experiments. Through this process, they learned what worked or didn’t work. There were gas-lighting (too fire-prone), electric arc lighting (too bright) and 23 other incandescent bulbs produced (too expensive) before Edison’s incandescent bulb. The effort, once begun, took more than 50 years to innovate a marketable solution and another 40 years for the infrastructure to be built that still supports the lightswitch flipping we take for granted today. And thus as technology evolves and takes time we must evolve and take the time to adapt and understand. Patience is obviously needed.
The inventors started with a human need for illumination after dark.
Using the aforementioned thought pattern as a guide, what is the human need within our communities today? Or in our nation? Having the right problem identified will allow us to experiment and iterate effectively, innovating as we go. Here are some quick ideas of what we need:
- Opportunities for individuals to thrive.
- Education about the opportunities available.
- Responsibility by individuals to give back to the community.
- Leaders who are responsive to their constituents.
What would you add?
Individually, we need to create conditions in which people can:
- Feel and be safe.
- Be able to provide for themselves and their families.
- Feel a sense of belonging.
- Contribute to something bigger than themselves.
You’ll notice that in addition to the material needs of food and shelter (providing for ourselves and family), most human needs are about a sense of security and belonging, which allows them to contribute back to the overall community. Our current systems do not provide for these immaterial needs, hence our society breaks down. Innovative solutions must and will address these human needs.
So much of our media and entertainment is focused on surviving a coming apocalypse. And in a sense, they are right that a way of life is ending. We have come to the end of an era; which is inevitably followed by a new era, necessitating we create the foundation for our next era interpersonally.
Let’s identify the unmet human needs and begin innovating to meet those needs. Perhaps then we will have a positive peace, based in liberty and justice for all.
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.