Roggenkamp is a junior at SUNY Oneonta and an Ambassador for Students for Open Primaries, a nonprofit dedicated to enfranchising young voters.
As a young voter, I’ve asked myself, “how can I use my voice in a big way?” My first thought was to go out and vote, but when I showed up to the last primary election I was turned away. That’s because while I’m a registered voter, I’m one of over three million independent voters in New York that are barred from voting in the primaries.
I thought back to a time when my Nana, who was born of Italian immigrants in 1928, was beyond proud to be an American. I recently found old newspaper clippings from when she was young, interviewed on the street by local newspapers on the topic of American politics. For her, being a woman with the right to vote was something she was proud of. Those memories had me question, why don’t voters have the same feeling of empowerment in elections today?
I always vote, but I never understood primary elections until recently. Primary elections are crucial to our electoral outcomes because they determine which representatives have a better standing in the general election.
The current system suppresses the voices of independents-derogatorily labeled “other” and “blank” on the New York voter rolls who are told to pick a side. Well, I’m here to tell you that young people, millennials and Gen Z alike, are registering as independents in record numbers- over 50 percent- and we don’t want to pick a side. Why should we be forced to join a private political party in order to vote?
In America, our motto is “United We Stand” because divided we fall, and I believe firmly in unity, freedom, and equality for all. This country is not just Red or Blue, but instead, there are voices that share independent or bipartisan beliefs, and those voices slip between the cracks and become lost along the way during primary elections.
We often forget just how many Americans are independent today. New data from Gallup shows that over 49 percent of Americans today consider themselves to be independent voters. Often these unconventional voices are looked upon negatively by partisans. However, people deserve the right to vote. Since New York is a closed primary state, citizens registered as independent or with no political party do not get to vote during primary elections, locking millions out of the democratic process.
New York is one of twelve states that still uses a closed primary system, and it needs to change. In 2023, more and more New Yorkers no longer identify with a political party, and both political parties in New York have lost voters in the last year and over the last decade. Voters who have chosen not to affiliate with any political party have grown by 22 percent.
There are many arguments on how open primaries would affect the nomination process, but the bigger picture is to stray from the extremes. We need to provide more opportunity and lift the veil to incentivize more voters to have their right to vote in primary elections in New York. Recent studies have found that open primaries significantly increase voter turnout. If our voices are heard and communities feel more understood, there will be a greater and more positive impact for all.
Opening primaries in New York has nothing to do with advancing one side over another but rather the opportunity to include every New Yorker in our most basic right as citizens— voting. As an American, I want the right to choose leaders that align with my beliefs. I am passionate about this issue because of my own experience of being turned away at the polls. I choose to speak up and I refuse to give up my democratic rights- something my late grandma would have frowned upon. The choice is ours in making greater impacts and it starts by reforming how we elect our public officials.
It’s time to open the primaries in New York.
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.