Golden is the author of "Unlock Congress" and a senior fellow at the Adlai Stevenson Center on Democracy, which seeks to improve democracy on a global scale. He is also a member of The Fulcrum's advisory board.
Several weeks ago, a political reformer named John Palmer composed a tweet urging people to check out an article about "unrigging" our flawed system of government and elections. He called it a "MUST MUST READ." Palmer tagged two organizations ( @usapromise and @representus) that are already working to rid our politics of big money corruption and to make all votes count equally in our elections.
A few days ago, I noticed that Palmer's tweet had been liked and retweeted more than 1,000 times. The number seemed kind of high for a "good government" message, albeit not very meaningful on its own. But then my curiosity took me to some of the retweeters' profiles, and their self-descriptions were eye-poppingly diverse.
For example, the profile of Floridian @Rickfh4760 reads: TRUMP2020KAG Jesus is Lord! Pro-Trump, KAG, MAGA, Constitution!
Across the aisle, Kentuckian @ChristyCoston28 announces herself as: Political junkie, mom, progressive, proud member of #TheResistance #Equality #Resist #TrumpRussia #ImpeachTrump #NeverGop.
It's clear that Rick's and Christie's political poles are pretty far apart. Yet in an America where we feel like the level of political division has just about topped out, each of them favored Palmer's message about the need to repair our damaged system.
You can see where I'm going with this. And while I don't have the space here to include the profiles of hundreds of retweeters ( viewable here), I can report that a fuller review only reinforced the point.
Americans' self-identification with the two major parties has been dwindling for a decade. The proportion of the electorate who identify as independents hit a record high of 43 percent in 2014, compared to 30 for Democrats and 26 for Republicans. Five years later it is virtually the same.
But beyond our distaste for the parties, we can't stand the flavor of the overall operation on Capitol Hill – no matter who's in charge of the chambers. Over a five-year period that began in 2014, Gallup pegged Americans' confidence in Congress in a range of 7 to 12 percent.
In the 2016 presidential election, two candidates who seemingly could not have been more politically opposite of one another, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, both railed on campaign cash as a major cause of a "rigged" system. That message resonated with millions of Americans regardless of political stripe — because it's true.
In a poll conducted right after the 2018 midterms, 75 percent of Americans said that "ending the culture of corruption in Washington" was a very important factor in their voting decision. That proportion was higher than for any other issue, including jobs, affordable health care and protecting Medicare and Medicaid.
This brings me to a delayed disclosure: It was I who wrote the article referenced in Palmer's tweet. And it was terrific to see folks from such diametrically opposed political camps — and all points in between — responding to it in such a positive fashion.
But it's not a total surprise. The fact is that more and more of us these days are talking, writing and working on the defective state of our political system and the ways in which we must take action to correct it, a critical subject.
Last year, the Adlai Stevenson Center on Democracy convened a group of democratic reform organizations to talk about how we could all help each other in our work to strengthen the system. What would be the best way for us — and all Americans — to become better connected and more informed? Not just about the causes of the breakdown, but more importantly, the real work being done on the ground that is already generating real wins.
Just over a year later those discussions have helped spawn the birth of The Fulcrum. Thanks to assiduous work by Nick Penniman of Issue One and this site's growing crew, we now have "the only news organization focused exclusively on efforts to reverse the dysfunctions plaguing American governance."
It is undeniable that at this historical moment we're experiencing a ton of division in our political discourse. But at the very same time, a record high proportion of Americans agree that we have a corrupt system producing a defective product.
Let's report on it more. Debate about it more. Ideate on it more. Let's keep growing this army of volunteers across the country who are working to reform the rules — in order to restore the system.
This is the place. The Fulcrum. Let the leveraging begin.
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.