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.
It is either ironic, a harbinger of good things to come, hard to read or some combination that the crisis on Capitol Hill revolving around the ousting of Speaker McCarthy has generated considerable discussion about the need to find a new center for the politics of the U.S. House of Representatives.
A range of pundits and members have recommended that moderates in the Republican caucus or both the Republican and Democratic caucuses take actions that would elect a moderate Speaker of the House. Moreover, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY) has recommended that a handful of moderate Republicans work with Democrats to elect a moderate Republican Speaker who would nevertheless forge a bipartisan relationship with the Democratic caucus to ensure that a set of rules be changed so that they give the Democrats more leverage in House Committees and on the Floor of the House.
What is ironic and possibly a harbinger of good is that the ousting of Speaker McCarthy was the idea of arch conservative Florida Representative Matt Gaetz. Joined by seven other arch conservatives, Gaetz led the way for McCarthy to be ejected from his seat as Speaker, the first Speaker in U.S. history to leave his seat due to a vote to vacate. Thus it would be ironic if moderation emerged from this very right wing source.
Arch conservative Trump close ally Ohio Representative Jim Jordan is currently nominated by the Republican caucus to be Speaker. If he wins, and the odds are not really in his favor, moderation and bipartisanship will have to wait for another opportunity to seize the day.
Regardless of the outcome, the very fact that there are different calls for moderation and bipartisanship is illuminating and even a source for hope. Those who claim that all Democrats are extremely liberal or socialists cannot push this line of thinking today. Those who say that the Problem Solvers Caucus founded by No Labels is more talk than action must recognize that the Problem Solvers keep getting up from the mat after they seem to have been knocked down.
Those who say that the Senator Manchins and Senator Sinemas of the world who have been barking up the wrong tree should take a good look at the various forces in Washington that suggest that we do not have a civil war between extremists liberals and extremist conservatives. Instead, we have two parties with rival factions and enough members who are disgusted with the extremists to at least make moderation and bipartisanship a genuine possibility.
Perhaps the next step in this saga of our national politics is for the people of the United States to get into the arena, especially via their votes in the upcoming primary season. About 40% of our citizens, according to Gallup, do not identify with either major party -- they are independents. We also get between 20 percent and 40 percent turnout in our primaries. The base turns out the most voters, and they are also least likely to be centrists or moderates.
These voters, independents and those who typically sit out primaries and even general elections, can also take seriously independent candidates for office who could provide a distinct third force on Capitol Hill. This would advance the republic to a very different place, one where not bipartisanship but tri-partisanship would rule. For if the Senate had 5-6 independents and the House had 10-15, then it would be necessary for both parties to work with the independents.
It certainly seems possible that if some upstanding non-extremists are the nominees for president from the two major parties, like Nikki Haley, former Republican Governor of South Carolina and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and -- if President Biden determines it is time to pass the baton -- Gavin Newsom, Democratic Governor of California and former Mayor of San Francisco, then America could be in a position to craft a new center for its politics whoever wins the election. This new center might wax and wane every four to six years and not itself be a definite place on the ideological spectrum.
Open primaries, ranked choice voting, and nonpartisan redistricting will be needed to move this process at a warp factor speed, but we should not underestimate the power voters have right now at the voting booth and at their mail boxes. Rep. Gaetz was successful in getting Kevin McCarthy removed from his seat as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, but he may have put enough things into place to reset our national politics in a promising direction.
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.