It was after midnight, and I was exhausted from the events of the previous 24 hours. It was January 7, 2021, and I watched in horror the events of January 6. It was disgusting that the cradle of democracy would be so defiled. But at 12:01 AM, I was given hope again because, on my television, the most wonderfully boring reality show was playing out on CNN. The Vice President of the United States and the Speaker of the House of Representatives were presiding over the counting and certification of votes for the next president of the United States.
Democracy survived. Most Americans outside the Washington Capital beltway don’t realize that the wounds of January 6 are reopened almost on a daily basis for those of us who consider ourselves as congressional institutionalists. Every time the media report, another insurrectionist is arrested, every time another one is sentenced, and every time the former President pledges to pardon them, it hurts. For those of us who have dedicated our lives to improving and maintaining the United States Congress, reliving those terrible events is truly painful.
We will never be able to wash away the scars of January 6 in the same way we cannot erase the wounds caused by the Civil War, Jim Crow laws, or the incarceration of Japanese Americans in internment camps in World War II. Yet, we must also not let these events define us as a society and nation. In all these cases, America has rebounded, healed itself, and once again proved to the world it is still a shining city on a hill, a symbol of democracy, freedom, and human rights.
Some look at the coming weeks and the four years that will follow with grim anticipation. And by no means do I wish to diminish or downplay the damage the next president may inflict on our nation and the world. But I’m also reminded that in his first term, the 45th President of the United States promised to ban Muslims from coming into the country, and he was stopped by the courts. He promised to overturn the Affordable Care Act, denying millions access to medical care, and the United States Senate thwarted him. And he threatened to unleash the military on peaceful protesters after the George Floyd murder, and he was blocked by the Pentagon.
America is much more resilient than we often give ourselves credit for. The checks and balance system that our Founders gave us has worked pretty well these last eight years, and it will work just as well in the next four years. With all this talk of being a dictator on day one, he cannot be. The Constitution gave us three equal branches of government. And while sometimes they don’t act like it, they still have the power to reign in excesses.
Perhaps it’s a byproduct of our cynical times that we focus on the negative and the day democracy was threatened instead of the day that democracy survived. We must not forget that January 6 was followed by January 7. And when the sun came up that next morning, American democracy was still alive. Indeed, you could argue it was thriving, as it had survived the most brutal attack on it since the Civil War.
While I will weep on January 6, 2025, just as I have on every January 6 since that fateful day, I will also smile, celebrate, and applaud January 7. Because that is the day democracy asserted itself and reminded us the American experiment goes on.
Bradford Fitch is a former congressional staffer, the former CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation, and author of “ Citizen’s Handbook to Influencing Elected Officials.”
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.