Bradford Fitch is the President and CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation and a former congressional staffer.
The recent Supreme Court decision outlawing affirmative action programs in college admissions has already spurred questions about other programs in the private sector aimed at improving diversity in the workplace. The Washington Post headline read, “Affirmative action ruling places a target on corporate diversity programs.” And The New York Times story was similar: "Affirmative Action Ruling May Upend Hiring Policies, Too.” It's not too far a stretch to imagine that the next battleground will be the public sector, including the U.S. Congress.
The Congressional Management Foundation has been working with the Congressional workforce for almost fifty years, providing nonpartisan guidance and training on management and hiring practices. In recent years we've seen a new focus on diversifying congressional offices – more than at any other time in congressional history. The House Office of Diversity and Inclusion has provided outstanding assistance to offices seeking to enhance their operations through diversity. Groups like the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies have correctly shined a light on the glaring imbalance of people of color working in Congress compared to the general U.S. population. And through its Staff Up Congress initiative, the National Association of Latino Elected Officials has provided professional and leadership training to young Hispanic staffers.
While there are moral and ethical arguments for diversifying the congressional workforce, the Congressional Management Foundation puts forth an additional reason: diverse organizations PERFORM BETTER than less diverse ones. A McKinsey and Company report examining 1,000 businesses in 15 countries was unequivocal in its finding: "Our latest report shows not only that the business case remains robust but also that the relationship between diversity on executive teams and the likelihood of financial outperformance has strengthened over time."A Canadian study of mergers and gender diversity in corporate executive teams and boards found that each additional female director on the board increased the acquiring company’s stock return by approximately three percent.
Each Congressional office is its own independent organization functioning with its own set of practices, policies, and legislative goals. While Congress is assuredly not a for-profit entity, the translation of research from the private sector to government work is logical: diversity in staff leadership will lead to better decision-making on public policy issues. In our work with Congressional offices, we have seen the positive impact of staff diversity firsthand. One office has staff who can answer constituent calls in ten different languages, while others have drawn on staffers’ experiences to understand the impact of legislation on their district.
One governmental organization which has seen tremendous success with diversifying its workforce is perhaps unexpected: The United States Army. And within the Army the leader in this effort has been the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. This graduating 2023 class of officers is the most diverse in history with 36 percent of graduates who are non-white. And, just as the business community makes the business case for diversity, the military makes the case based on their operational needs. In heralding the military benefits of diversity, Col. Drew Deaton wrote in an Association of the U.S. Army Newsletter: "Maximizing the strengths of diverse team members is key to success in leadership and amplifying a unit’s ability to accomplish its mission most effectively…. Our different life and career experiences, ways of thought and lifestyles were not sources of conflict or discord. Rather, they gave us exceptional insights to complement one another’s styles and cover each other’s blind spots.”
It is lamentable that the topic of diversifying a workforce falls prey to partisan squabbling. Organizations seeking to improve should be guided by good management principles, not political ideology. Yet it would be a significant setback in the effort to improve and modernize the Congress if this Supreme Court decision was used to scale back the movement to diversify the staff of the Congress. The management research is clear: decision-making from diverse teams is more creative, profitable, and responsive to their stakeholders. Achieving the goal of creating a workforce that looks more like America will not only give Congress greater moral authority in its decisions, it will result in better public policy.
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.