The latest reminder that voting fraud is a mirage comes from Montana, which has a small population but is a big part of the Republican playbook for holding the Senate and propelling President Trump's re-election.
The GOP took alarmed notice recently when an audit of registration lists found almost 500 dead people still on the voter rolls. But, on closer inspection, investigators for the Republican-majority Legislature found no sign that any of them have voted from the grave — a practice the president falsely asserts is rampant and could undermine his shot at a second term.
The myth of party operatives using names and birthdates on headstones to prop up their Election Day vote totals is part of American lore, and may have been easier in decades before registration lists got digitized and federal law required they be kept up to date. But in recent years, while a tiny fraction of the deceased get overlooked during such cleanup efforts, evidence their identities have been claimed by live voters has been non-existent.
After it became clear the Russian government interfered with the 2016 presidential election, Congress approved a set of grants to states to bolster their safeguards against hacking. Montana spent $2 million to update its voter registration system, and the recent audit was commissioned to see if the changes worked.
Comparing the rolls against state death records, investigators found 493 people in both databases — one out of every 1,400 registered voters. But after looking at 4.6 million ballots cast in various elections since 2010, the auditors found just two instances where it appeared a ballot had been accepted after a voter's death. In one case, the namesake son had turned in his late father's absentee ballot instead of his own. The other was a clerical error at a county courthouse.
The result will be of no help to Trump. In recent days, he's gone beyond his by now familiar allegations that the election will be sullied by cheaters exploiting the unusually wide use of mail-in ballots because of the coronavirus pandemic. On "Fox & Friends" on Tuesday morning, and at several recent campaign stops, he declared that the only way he can lose is if the Democrats steal the election — another unprecedented assault on democratic norms from a White House occupant.
"The one thing we can't beat, if they cheat on the ballots," Trump told a rally Sunday in Nevada, where all registered voters will, receive ballots in the mail in few weeks. Of Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, he said: "Now he will cheat on the ballots, I have no doubt about it."
Back in Montana, Trump remains a reasonable if not locked-in bet to carry the state's 3 electoral votes, which have gone to the GOP in six straight elections, while Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock is mounting a too-close-to-call bid for the Senate against Republican incumbent Steve Daines.
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.