Richard Davies is a solutions journalist and podcast consultant. He co-hosts two bi-weekly podcasts: "Let's Find Common Ground" and "How Do We Fix It?" for commongroundcommittee.org,
All too often popular culture invites us to escape and be less reflective about our own lives, while being more cynical or despairing of the public square.
Does this come at a cost to trust and democracy? I think so, yes.
Today, so much of our music, television and video games are served up with a dark, slick, dystopian vision of humanity. Such a contrast to the simple global appeal of American blue jeans and pop music that arguably played such a decisive role in the West's victory in the Cold War. Before the Iron Curtain fell in the late 1980's, East German and Czech government TV channels were serving up their own stale versions of Western pop culture to entertain the masses.
Now we're said to live in a golden age of television. And indeed, the most highly-praised shows are sometimes as deep, thoughtful, and creative as literature. Two examples: The recently-concluded HBO series "Succession," and "White Lotus" have captivated viewers with superb acting and memorable one-liners from brilliant script writers. But both were about totally spoiled brats. We watched with a mixture of fascination and disgust. Perhaps we felt a little bit soiled from our exposure to so much dirty laundry.
So, how refreshing it is to hear something beautiful, captivating and meditative from one of the greatest singer-songwriters of our age, 81-year-old Paul Simon. "Seven Psalms "is his latest and possibly final offering. From the opening gongs to that familiar tenor with his playful phrases, we know we are in for a treat. The album, one continuous lovely piece of music, clocks in at just over 30 minutes.
The elderly Paul Simon of this album is "contemplating death and testing the possibilities of faith,"writes Ludovic Hunter-Tilney in his recent review in The Financial Times. "The results are compact but profound, like a pocket-sized psalter from Simon’s Jewish upbringing or a Christian book of hours, an aid to devotion."
With this album we are invited to go deep and consider the divine. The seven music movements apparently came to Simon in a series of dreams. As with many spiritual thinkers, he welcomes doubt and wonder. And he does it in such an inviting way. “This whole piece is really an argument I’m having with myself about belief, or not,” Simon says in the album’s trailer.
On "Seven Psalms" he opens the curtain gently with his own feelings about life and death. The Lord, Simon surmises, could be "a road I slip and slide on." We are reminded of "Slip Slidin' Away," Paul Simon's hit song from the late 70's. There are other hints from his long career as a hitmaker.
That lovely, melodic voice is still there as it has been since the sixties. And his ability to distill the complex and profound into one short line of song is as sharp as ever. Paul Simon is confronting mortality, wondering about God and human existence. He does it with such gentle genius and with an appeal that invites us to feel we are right alongside him.
As a young man, his pop hits with Art Garfunkel were simple, hopeful melodies of youth and right up there with the Lennon-McCartney duo. Paul Simon's long and winding musical journey continues to this very day. His influences are from the American popular songbook to Brazil, South Africa and beyond.
As we ponder the future of our democracy and the possibilities of greater inclusion and fundamental reform, we should welcome nuance and curiosity. Movies, television, music and other forms of popular entertainment can help us define our personal sense of morality, belonging, and how we relate to the rest of the world.
Nothing about Paul Simon’s new album is overtly political. But its invitation for us to go a little deeper provides nourishment for the soul. And that kind of food for thought can offer us ballast and even a sense of calm as we navigate the urgent, yet complex challenges of our public lives.
"Seven Psalms " is Paul Simon’s 15th solo album. I hope it won't be his last.
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.