Ace Parsi is Director of Coalition Engagement at iCivics, and serves as the co-chair for the National Week of Conversation K–12 Working Group.The opinions expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of iCivics or the NWOC.
When I was eight, my family and I immigrated to the United States from Iran. It goes without saying that neither my older brother nor I learned the intricacies of democracy in Iranian schools—quite the opposite. If I hadn’t immigrated, chances are that I would have, like so many others, still desired to live in a democracy. After all, I’m the nephew of uncles imprisoned for being part of the Iranian pro-democracy student movement. But even this familiar connection is no guarantee that I would have learned about democracy, for such knowledge is not passed down to us through the gene pool.
This is why it is essential—in our self-governing society—to ensure each and every student in our country attains the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to be informed and engaged participants in our constitutional democracy. As we approach the National Week of Conversation this April 17 - 23, in which we are called to make active efforts to bridge differences, we would do well to remember that this means learning, experiencing, and internalizing skills essential to a healthy democracy’s success—namely bridging and key related skills and dispositions like empathy, curiosity, and listening.
This kind of civic learning happens both inside and outside of school. And like any other discipline, powerful civic learning builds on what we know about learning theory: Learning is internalized when it’s contextualized within prior experience; synthesized and transferred to novel situations; and then crystalized through dedicated time for reflection. This we know to be true in any number of areas—learning a sport, a musical instrument, a scientific principle, or driving—and it is true for civic and bridging skills.
The most important teaching and learning experiences that make me the civic actor I am today weren’t about reading and memorizing as a student or lecturing as a teacher, though there is certainly a place where that type of teaching and learning is important. As an elementary school teacher, the most important learning experiences happened when students learned about rainforests and then were able to demonstrate what they learned by writing letters to their members of Congress. As a learner, my most important learning experiences happened when I applied what I’d learned about legislation to funding at a Boys and Girls Club where I volunteered or participated in a budget simulation in which I played the role of a Congressional appropriator balancing the budget.
In the case of bridging, then, one can’t simply read about empathy, curiosity, and listening, but must have the opportunity to put these learnings into practice, as is done in sports, driving, or virtually any other academic discipline. These elements of quality learning theory show up in the work of any number of other partners involved in the National Week of Conversation K–12 Working Group.
Lastly, part of this experience is not just what kids learn but what they see. To put it another way, it’s not what we teach but what we model. Our kids are learning about their communities and the world around them through a variety of sources. It is incumbent upon parents, educators, community leaders, policymakers, and so many more to engage in productive ways and model the desired dispositions. If we are serious about teaching our children the skills necessary to sustain and strengthen 21st-century democracy in the United States, we must model civility and the civic behaviors we want the next generation to learn.
Moving forward, we invite your engagement in the process. Our K–12 working group is seeking stories of how educators are supporting bridging skills in classrooms and how parents and school board members are modeling bridging in meetings. We also are looking for resources that help contribute to the conversation.
Difference is a hallmark of democracy—not a bug. If you are engaged in this difficult work of bridging and productive dialogue across differences, we hope to show through this National Week of Conversation and beyond that that you are not alone.
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.”
____
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.