Pedro Silva is the Founder of Liberation Comedy and Director of Engagement for YOUnify. Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
Laughter is the embodiment of depolarization. Just consider that in order for something to evoke laughter, it has to both have the capacity to hold tension and release tension at the same time. Like some kind of cognitive dissonance yoga, laughing requires one to hold a posture long enough to realize the benefits of the subsequent release. That’s why many folks in the bridging movement have begun to explore the power of laughter to bring people together across differences.
It’s no secret that pop culture in America has amazing healing and connecting powers. Throughout history, we’ve seen how artists, entertainers, athletes, and creators of every kind invite us into a space of transcendence that leads to connectivity. When harnessed, we see that when we join people together their energy for good can be amplified and scaled.
Toward that end, Liberation Comedy (LibCom), a brand new comedy concept founded by former pastor Pedro Silva, who currently works for a non-profit organization YOUnify as the director of Engagement, has launched an effort to use laughter as a scaffolding for building social cohesion. Liberation Comedy is based on the principle that comedy is an effective tool to bring people together through listening and laughing their way into embracing our common humanity.
In this time of social media and the divisive way that many of us use the internet, comedy can help us realize the absurdity of the “us versus them" mentality in our country and understand that we’re all in this together. To quote comedian critic Ronald K.L Collings:
“Comedy can be erudite or entertaining, or both, and yes, it can be rude and ridiculous, just as life itself can be. But in its finest moments comedy is the enemy of fanaticism, the foe of tyranny, the adversary of strident know-nothings, the nemesis of the pompous, and the friend of skepticism in an overconfident world. Then again, sometimes comedy is no more than the source of a full belly laugh.”
The hope of LibCom is that through the power of raucous laughter, we can drown out the voices that divide us as a nation by turning the rhetoric down a notch, listening and laughing more together and eventually hating less. Ultimately the goal is to harness the positive power of comedy to support constructive debate and encourage people to engage with people who think differently.
Liberation Comedy, if channeled responsibly, can be one component of pop culture along with music, theater, poetry, and other art forms to reach people’s souls so we can engage them to join in grassroots movements that scale and amplify our victories and advance our values for lasting impact.
To hear more about Pedro’s thoughts on the power of comedy, check out this post entitled, If We Can Laugh Together, Maybe We Can Last Together.
Click here to enjoy Liberation Comedy’s inaugural stand up set, “May Laughter Set You Free,” featuring Pedro Silva.
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.