Richard Davies is a journalist and podcaster. He runs the podcast consultancy, DaviesContent and co-hosts “How Do We Fix It?” and “Let’s Find Common Ground”.
You could be forgiven for thinking that this weekend’s coronation of King Charles III will be a right royal yawner. But history’s judgment could prove to be quite different.
As usual with great royal spectacles, Saturday’s lavish occasion will be full of pomp and ceremony. The soaring setting itself is remarkable. During a recent month-long stay in London, I spent several happy hours at Westminster Abbey, the one-thousand-year-old site of countless coronations of kings and queens. The Abbey is brimming with history and the greatest of all examples of Britain’s long and layered history.
Prince Charles himself has been described as stiff, formal, and awkward. He certainly waited long enough to take over the job from his "mum". But friends say he has a lively mind and a wry sense of humor. Charles may also be the UK’s most seasoned diplomat.
The new King speaks several foreign languages. A recent visit to Germany was widely viewed as a resounding success. He personally knows more international leaders than almost anyone else.
The King may well help his small island nation continue to punch above its weight. At the coronation alongside foreign royals and British political leaders will be EU President Ursula von den Leyen, French President Emmanuel Macron and other top officials. Press reports in the UK suggest that Charles will play a leading role in healing the UK’s toxic relations after Brexit.
Americans may be bewildered at the relevance of the monarchy in modern times. The US media have recently played up reports of discontent and doubt. But the great problem for British republicans is the issue that dogs so many radical reformers: Once you tear down the monarchy and all of its traditions, who would you replace them with?
A directly-elected regime could end in tatters, as we saw last year with the demise of Boris Johnson— once the UK’s most popular politician.
This is not to say that the British are impervious to change. During the four decades since I last lived in London, the city has become brighter, less polluted and quieter with greater prosperity and racial diversity. A visit to several of the most prestigious law courts revealed that more than half of today’s up-and-coming solicitors and barristers are women.
The city's skyline and infrastructure underwent more alternations than either New York or Washington, D.C. London’s beautiful parks and efficient public transportation system would be the envy of any large U.S. city. Careful planning has helped bring a sense of order and shared pride in many public spaces.
Without doubt, the ill-advised Brexit break-up with Europe seven years ago has taken its toll on the economy. Growth has slowed to a crawl. According to the UK government's Office for National Statistics, the UK remains the only nation in the Group of Seven large industrial economies that has yet to fully recover its lost output during the COVID pandemic. Trade with the EU— still its largest trading partner— has fallen in recent years. Red-tape faced by businesses is considerably worse since the UK left the European single market and customs union.
But Brexit has not been the disaster that some EU “remainers” had forecast. The view south from Parliament Hill on Hampstead Heath revealed clusters of cranes at large building projects in several parts of the great city.
Perhaps in the old days London had more character and chaos. I went to two soccer games in April (the rest of the world calls the game football), and witnessed a few striking differences.
Today’s fans at both Loftus Road, home of Queens Park Rangers, and the mammoth new stadium built for Tottenham Hotspurs, were mostly good-humored and polite. Both games were family-friendly events. Beer is no longer drunk in large amounts in the stands and smoking is now banned. The most passionate supporters still sing and chant. But the old hordes of English football hooligans belong more to the storied past than the (mostly) stable present.
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.