The Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive think tank at New York University Law School, is one of the preeminent groups pushing for a comprehensive, reliable and safe election during the coronavirus pandemic. And helming that litigation, research and lobbying effort is Myrna Pérez. She runs the voting rights and elections program and has been with the Brennan Center most of her professional life, arriving after a stint at a civil rights firm in Washington and clerkships for federal trial and appeals court judges in Philadelphia. Before getting a law degree from Columbia in 2003, she was a health care and housing analyst for what's now called the Government Accountability Office, the congressional oversight agency. Her answers have been edited for clarity and length.
What's democracy's biggest challenge, in 10 words or less?
Politicians manipulating the rules so some of us can't vote.
Describe your very first civic engagement.
I vividly remember some important moments, but not the dates well enough to know what happened first. Going with my tia to the polls in my native San Antonio. A lot of confusion and frustration in early school experiences because of the cultural gaps between me and some of my teachers — and me trying, in my small-child way, to educate my teachers about my community. And asking my parents to donate to anti-hunger causes instead of giving me a Christmas present. If you asked my very large family, they'd probably tell you about the time I raised a fuss because one of my cousins intended to keep a fish he had caught that was just under the legal limit. They love to tell that story.
What was your biggest professional triumph?
No one person is responsible for a victory and there are a million invisible ways people are set up to succeed by other people. Reframing the question into what victories made me the happiest, those would be passage in 2018 of the Florida referendum to restore voting rights to felons and the 2016 federal appeals court ruling that the Texas photo ID law violated the Voting Rights Act.
And your most disappointing setback?
I wasn't surprised but was nonetheless devastated when Matt Bevin became governor of Kentucky in 2015 and undid the executive order of his predecessor, Steve Beshear, ending a permanent and blanket ban on voting by people with criminal convictions. Fortunately the current governor, Andy Beshear, issued an executive order similar to his father's upon taking office last year.
How does your identity influence the way you go about your work?
My identity is why I do the work! My parents were Mexican immigrants. I was a girl in a large and pretty traditional immigrant family. I see the world in terms of the trauma, dysfunction and injustice that are caused by racism, poverty and sexism. But I'm also a person of faith. So I know how the human story ends: Love wins. One of the beautiful mysteries of my faith is that, while the beginning and the end of the story are set, God is using us to write the middle.
What's the best advice you've ever been given?
One is, "Never be so self-duplicitous that you conflate your friends with your contacts." The other comes from the Book of Micah: "Do Justice. Love Kindness. Walk Humbly with Your God."
Create a new flavor for Ben & Jerry's.
Mango, lime and chile sorbet.
What's your favorite political movie or TV show?
So many! But probably "Selma," the 2014 historical drama film about the 1965 voting rights marches in Alabama.
What's the last thing you do on your phone at night?
Check my calendar for tomorrow.
What is your deepest, darkest secret?
Even at my age, I can do a near perfect cartwheel. Also, I used to prefer flour tortillas to corn — but, to be clear, I have now seen the light.
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.