When it comes to elections during the pandemic, Kentucky has stood apart in two ways. It instituted one of the nation's most restrictive voter identification laws just as the coronavirus was shutting government offices that issue ID cards, but its leaders also cut an unusual bipartisan deal resulting in one of the smoothest vote-by-mail primaries so far.
A civil rights group has now sued to make the state abandon that first move, but stick with the second, at least through the November election.
Filed Tuesday in state court, the lawsuit comes early in what's likely to become a flood of litigation to make voting for president easy and safe this fall. While most states have made accommodations for their primaries, they have not done so for the general election.
Many legislatures adjourned for the year before the resurgence of Covid-19 infections. Some governors with the power to change the rules on their own, in both parties, have not yet confronted their options, while many GOP governors seem ready to resist expanded voting by mail in light of President Trump's emphatic objections.
The suit in Kentucky, brought by the Fair Elections Center on behalf of four voters who say their fragile health will preclude them from going to the polls this fall, seeks to force the state to maintain the rules used for the June primary conducted mainly through the mail.
Under a deal between Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams, the state's usual requirement of an excuse to vote absentee was suspended, and voters were informed by postcard they could request a mail ballot online and send it in two weeks before election day.
To accommodate people who decided they needed or wanted to vote in person, counties were required to have at least one polling place and open it several days ahead of time. That raised serious eyebrows when there was just one was set up in both Louisville and Lexington, but on primary day the facilities were generally described as efficient and the length of the lines manageable.
After the suit was filed, the governor's office said Beshear would support an indefinite extension of the primary regulations, while the secretary of state has declined to comment.
The two remain on opposite sides of the voter ID law. Adams helped to draft the measure this winter, saying it would enhance election security. It was enacted over a veto in March from Beshear, who said it would lead to voter suppression.
Either way, the suit maintains, "a pandemic is no time to impose a new requirement for identification that forces voters to enter government offices, have in-person interactions with election officials, and/or enter other public spaces to obtain a copy of their ID."
To keep the ID law but drop the mail voting easements, the suit says, would violate the state Constitution's mandate that "all elections shall be free and equal."
The arrangements for the primary were widely hailed as working as designed. More than a million votes were cast, four out of five by mail in a state that usually records fewer than 5 percent submitted that way because of the excuse rules. Thanks mainly to a high-profile Democrtatic Senate nomination contest, the turnout statewide was 29 percent, almost matching the record for a primary set a dozen years ago.
And the 4 percent share of mailed ballots that were rejected — mostly because the envelopes weren't signed or were mailed too late — was below the last two elections.
Trump can count on the 8 electoral votes from the state, which has reported more than 17,500 coronavirus cases and just over 600 deaths. And Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is the solid, if not prohibitive, favorite to secure a seventh Senate term despite an extraordinarily well-funded challenge from Democrat Amy McGrath, a Marine fighter pilot veteran who lost a House race two years ago.
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.