This month Khalid Pitts became executive vice president for policy and programs at FairVote, one of the most visible advocates for more ranked-choice voting, multimember legislative districts and other election system reforms. It's a sharp turn in a diverse two-decade career, most recently with six years at the political consulting firm Democracy Partners. Over the past decade he's also held sometimes overlapping roles during the past decade as the Sierra Club's political director, senior lobbyist for the Service Employees International Union and president of USAction, a coalition of progressive community organizing groups. He remains co-owner of the Cork Wine Bar and Market in Washington, where he's made one run for office — losing a city council race six years ago. His answers have been edited for clarity and length.
What's the tweet-length description of your organization?
FairVote is helping lead the way in opening more access to our democracy, reforming our electoral system and moving us a step closer to our country becoming that more "Perfect Union" we all strive for.
Describe your very first civic engagement.
I worked a mimeograph machine to print campaign flyers for Coleman Young, who was elected the first African-American mayor of Detroit in 1973. Yes, a mimeograph machine. I was very young!
What was your biggest professional triumph?
I have a master's degree in public health and serve on the executive board of D.C.'s Health Benefit Exchange, so health care is something extremely important to me. I would have to say the biggest triumph was co-founding and leading HCAN, or Healthcare for America Now, a national coalition that grew in two years to more than 1,000 organizations and played a central role in helping enact the Affordable Care Act a decade ago.
And your most disappointing setback?
I got my start in national politics in 1999 at the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and am still working for that goal. The failure by Congress to revive the ban on some assault weapons, which expired 16 years ago, is a travesty. And so is the fact that we still lack a comprehensive national approach to reducing gun violence.
How does your identity influence the way you go about your work?
I am an African-American male and a "girl dad." I have tried to be an active participant in breaking down barriers that unfortunately still surround national policy and political discussions.
What's the best advice you've ever been given?
My dad told me many, many years ago that what matters much more than how you say "hello" is how you say "goodbye."
Create a new flavor for Ben & Jerry's.
Michigan Black Cherry. I'm from Detroit and the beauty of the upper part of Michigan's lower peninsula, where many of the state's fabled fruit orchards are, is breathtaking in its natural splendor.
What's your favorite political movie or TV show?
"Do the Right Thing," Spike Lee's classic 1989 film exploring the racial tensions in one Brooklyn neighborhood.
What's the last thing you do on your phone at night?
I have been playing a game called Dragonville with my son, so I check my nesting eggs.
What is your deepest, darkest secret?
I am a closeted — well I guess this means I'm closeted no more — fan of Dungeons and Dragons. So on Saturdays, I play Dungeon Master for my son and his fourth-grader friends.
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.