Now it's a presidential debate that has created the latest low-point for our dysfunctional democracy — and on several fronts.
Tuesday night's chaotic 90 minutes of hectoring, crosstalk, bombast, browbeating, baseless assertions and buck-passing will be remembered, at a minimum, for effectively extinguishing the already sullied concept of civil political discourse.
It will also be known for President Trump finding yet another venerable democratic institution — somber debate of the top issues by the nation's two would-be leaders — that he was eager to attack. He employed so much off-point heckling and demeaning personal attacks that his exasperated challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, twice labeled Trump a "clown."
And that was all before the sitting American president decided to intensify his unprecedented assault on the integrity of the coming presidential election itself and his unwillingness to promise a peaceful transition, unheard-of rattling of democracy's bedrock before a global audience that included an estimated 73 million American voters.
"Having a repeat of last night's debate risks muddying the waters on what should be quintessential democratic values, and foreign adversaries could try and amplify such rhetoric in an effort to sow further confusion and chaos ahead," David Levine of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a bipartisan group formed to prevent a repeat of Russian interference in the presidential election, warned Wednesday.
"The U.S. election crisis moved to Code Red" because of the debate, said Josh Silver, founder of the prominent democracy reform group RepresentUs. "This is unprecedented in American history. If you're not worried about a coup d'etat by this president, you're not paying attention."
The Commission on Presidential Debates promised Wednesday that it would soon tighten the rules for the next two debates "to ensure a more orderly discussion."
Biden's "Will you shut up, man?" demand may be remembered as the clarion soundbite of the shambolic previous night, one when Trump's bullying and bluster amplified the notion that the presidency itself has become so demeaned as to further weaken democracy.
That was reinforced in the final substantive exchange. Trump unspooled a scattershot set of grossly exaggerated or essentially fabricated examples of election cheating to cast fresh doubt on the validity of the vote. He asserted wrongly that several states had extended the time for voting, when what they have done is extend deadlines for the arrival of absentee votes postmarked by Election Day. He refused, for the third time in a week, to promise to be part of an orderly transfer of power if he loses. And he declined, when asked by moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News, to pledge to not "engage in any civil unrest" or "not declare victory" until the count was complete.
As he has for months, Trump asserted without genuine evidence that the record use of mail-in ballots, thousands of which have already been completed, would assure "this is going to be a fraud like you've never seen."
"They're being sold. They're being dumped in rivers. This is a horrible thing for our country. This is not going to end well," he declared.
Trump also said he was likely to insist that the Supreme Court be the ultimate referee in disputes over absentee ballots — which could mean a delay of weeks if not months in the final outcome. It also has Senate Democrats intensifying their campaign to persuade Trump's nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, to recuse herself from any election cases if confirmed in time.
"I think I'm counting on them to look at the ballots, definitely." Trump said of the justices. "I hope we don't need them, in terms of the election itself. But for the ballots, I think so, because what's happening is incredible."
Biden, for his part, was unequivocal in committing to accepting the final results of the election regardless of the outcome — also saying unequivocally that he views voting by mail as trustworthy and noting the president's own casting of Florida absentee ballots from the White House. He said Trump's smears against absentee ballots — at a time when tens of millions will use them for the first time to avoid coronavirus exposure — are part of his effort to suppress turnout.
"This is all about trying to dissuade people from voting because he's trying to scare people into thinking it's not going to be legitimate," Biden said in response to Trump. "If we get the votes, it's going to be all over. He can't stay in power."
Nonetheless, the president appeared to be inviting a constitutional crisis if the margins are too close to call in many battleground states until days after Election Day — which is very possible because several of them don't even start processing their piles of absentee ballots until that day.
One of them is Pennsylvania, where Trump also wrongly asserted that GOP-friendly poll watchers were wrongly prevented from observing the first day of in-person early voting in Philadelphia. The Trump campaign has no poll watchers approved to work in the city, and traditional polling stations that permit observers have not yet opened.
The debate started an hour after the House voted 397-5, with the dissenters all Republicans, for a resolution affirming support for a peaceful transfer of power. The Senate adopted a nearly identical measure by voice vote last week.
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.