Simon is a technology consultant and a contributing author of “Leveraging: A Political, Economic and Societal Framework.”
No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, it’s clear that democracy in America has been weakened by events over the past decade. In fact, one of the few things that people can agree on in an increasingly polarized country is that the very foundations of American democracy have become threatened. In such an environment, we need to look for ways to strengthen our trust in the democratic process.
There is no magic bullet to quickly restore Americans’ confidence in elections; that trust will need to be rebuilt over time. For those who have lost faith in the election process, regardless of the reason, it will take many small building blocks to repair the foundation. To that end, I propose that establishing “election poll duty,” akin to jury duty, could be one of those building blocks.
Some factions in America have been attacking the election process by raising doubts about voting methods, tabulation of votes, voting equipment and systems used, as well as the audits and controls built into the process. At the same time, experts in the field widely view recent elections as some of the most secure in American history.
My contention is that the more people understand the process, the less likely they would be to try to bring it down. If more people were to participate in the election polling process over time, this would increase the understanding and appreciation for what goes on — thereby making it harder to cast aspersions on the process with baseless attacks.
Currently, most people are aware that they could be called upon for jury duty. Names are periodically selected from motor vehicle records, voter registration or other governmental records within the state to serve on jury duty. If your name is called, you are legally required to fulfill your obligation as per state rules and regulations. On the other hand, election poll workers are generally volunteers. Fortunately, we have enough civic-minded people in the country who are willing to serve in these roles as election officials, although it has become harder to serve amid increasing personal threats.
There are plenty of volunteer opportunities that don’t require specialized skills or technical knowledge, just a little training. By treating election poll staffing like jury duty and selecting a cross-section of people to serve, we would promote collaboration with other people in a nonpartisan fashion to conduct elections. Polarization has effectively eliminated communication across party lines; random selection of election poll works could help promote communication and understanding that is noticeably absent in society today.
If we are going to stem the tide of polarization in America and restore faith in the election process, we will need to take collective action. The concept of compulsory election poll duty would be a small, but important, step that could be part of a grassroots effort to help preserve the common principles that bind all of us together as Americans.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.