David Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
I was watching the 2023 Country Music Awards last week and was struck by a song near the end of the awards ceremony, “Love Can Build a Bridge”.
This song written by Naomi Judd, Paul Overstreet, and John Barlow Jarvis, and recorded by American country music duo The Judds was released in 1990.
Yet, the lyrics are as powerful today as they were when they were written over thirty years ago. As I listened to the lyrics, I thought that it must be a song about bridging the divide that is separating our nation.
Love can build a bridge
Between your heart and mine
Love can build a bridge
Don't you think it's time?
Don't you think it's time?
I would whisper love so loudly
Every heart could understand
That love and only love
Can join the tribes of man
I would give my heart's desire
So that you might see
The first step is to realize
That it all begins with you and me
But I was wrong. I was quite surprised to discover that the song by Naomi Judd was dedicated to the Judd family and fans as a goodbye, as at the time, Naomi was chronically ill with Hepatitis C and was forced to retire. While the song was not at all political, its message about the importance of always standing together is a lesson that our nation surely must learn.
The audience was obviously moved as Jelly Roll and K. Michelle sang with power and obvious emotion and I couldn’t help but think that country music could serve as a powerful force to bridge the divides that are separating us as a nation.
So, I did a bit of research and discovered that in early 2021 famous country singer Luke Combs wrote and performed the song, “The Great Divide,” that connected politics and country music. At the time, Combs told The Rolling Stone that the song was an interpretation of the conflict and tension we had been witnessing at the time he wrote it.
The lyrics speak powerfully to the conflict in America:
We're striking matches on the TV
Setting fires on our phones
Bearing crosses we believe in dying on
Tempers flare, the flame flies higher
As we soar closer towards the sun
But I like to think too much damage ain't been done
We're all so far, so far apart now
It's as deep as it is wide
We're about to fall apart now
If we can't reach the other side
Other country superstars have spoken out about finding common ground. Garth Brooks was widely criticized by many of his fans for performing at President Biden's inaugural but fended of the criticism with this message of unity:
"I'll tell you with this whole presidential thing: We got one going out. Pray for him and his family. And for the president going in, pray for him and his family to guide this nation," Brooks said at the time. "Let's stay together. Love, unity -- that's what it's all about." He continued, "We can't thank the Obamas enough for serving this country," he said. "And may God hold Trump's hand in the decisions that he makes in this country's name as well."
Listen to both “Love Can Build a Bridge” and “The Great Divide” and see if you feel the amazing healing and connecting powers music can have on us. And just imagine how if this energy for good were amplified and scaled.
Jelly Roll and K. Michelle Perform "Love Can Build A Bridge" at the The CMA Awards
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.