Just days prior to Thanksgiving, the federal government announced that the national voter registration form will be offered in select Native American languages for the first time.
The Election Assistance Commission revealed Monday that the form will be translated into the Yup'ik, Navajo and Apache languages, bringing the total non-English offerings to 20 languages. The EAC said this expansion was done in celebration of Native American Heritage Month and as part of its efforts to improve voting accessibility.
"The Navajo Nation leads history again by allowing our sacred language to be translated to register more of our people to vote," said Seth Damon, leader of the Navajo Nation Council. "The Native American vote is powerful and our Sovereign Nations will continue to decide elections across the United States."
Native Americans were not granted full U.S. citizenship or the right to vote until the passage of the Snyder Act in 1924. And over the last century, Native American voters have faced significant barriers to the ballot box. During the 2020 election, mail voting access was of particular concern since many Native American voters live in areas without traditional mailing addresses or access to postal offices.
" Alaska Native people deserve equitable access to all parts of the electoral process, and translating important forms and content into our Indigenous languages is an important step in that direction," said Samantha Mack, language assistance compliance manager at the Alaska Division of Elections.
Eligible U.S. citizens can use the national voter registration form, but must follow state-specific instructions to register or update their voting information. Apart from English and the three Native American languages, the form is available in Amharic, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog and Vietnamese.
All of the language offerings are written translations, except for Apache, which is the first ever audio translation of the form. Some Native American languages are primarily or solely spoken languages, making written translations essentially impossible.
"Election terminology can often be difficult to translate into other languages without the assistance of native speakers and translators," the EAC commissioners said in a joint statement. "With access to election materials translated by native speakers from within their own communities, Native American voters will have a better understanding of the election process and greater accessibility."
The Navajo Nation also hopes to have a Navajo audio translation that talks voters through the form, Damon said. The EAC said in its announcement that the agency plans to expand upon the audio translations it offers in the future, as well as explore other ways to improve voting access for Native Americans.
"Working with Indigenous speakers to translate the national mail voter registration form into Yup'ik, Apache and Navajo languages eliminates some obstacles that limit native voter participation in U.S. elections and lives up to Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act," said Native American Rights Fund staff attorney Matthew Campbell, who leads the nonprofit legal organization's voting rights work. "Meaningful democracy reform requires this kind of inclusive participation and a commitment to support the rights of all eligible citizens to vote."
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.