Zaidane is the president and CEO of Millennial Action Project.
The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle, is a philosophy that says 80 percent of outcomes are derived from about 20 percent of activities. In business, it’s a positive and simple way to project investments and the productivity of a sales team.
In our democracy, the Pareto Principle is not a good thing.
According to a recent report, due to population dynamics and extreme partisan gerrymandering, 83 percent of congressional seats were decided by only 10 percent of eligible Americans. This powerful minority of citizens vote in primary elections. This year, over 80 percent of people did not vote in the Texas primary, meaning fewer than one in five eligible voters in Texas partook in the democratic process.
As state legislatures finish redistricting and set the political landscape for the next 10 years, it’s imperative to discuss primary reform. Not only to combat hyperpartisanship but also to increase civic participation, ensure more diverse candidate pools, and ultimately represent leadership with various experiences and points of view necessary to write effective policy and better serve the American public.
Problematically, primary voters do not reflect the demographics and ideology of the general population. For example, early primary and caucus states like Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina represent less than 4 percent of the U.S. population in presidential election years. They also underrepresent the country’s ethnic diversity, yet traditional pundits consider these states indicative of a candidate's overall strength. Furthermore, at a local level, Democratic and Republican primary voters skew older than the population in their neighborhoods and districts despite people under 40 and political Independents ranking as the largest groups in the United States. In comparison, only 7 percent of members of Congress and 5 percent of state legislators are millennials. As a result, this increases polarization because the status quo maintains its power, the most extreme candidates are pushed forward to general elections, and leaders don’t necessarily reflect the communities they serve.
The case for examining our primary system is clear. From gerrymandering to low participation, primaries can often be the nursery for democratic upheaval and unrepresentative outcomes.
Thankfully, several states are setting aside political differences and working toward systematic reform of their primary elections. At the Millennial Action Project, we believe that higher engagement among voters and elected leaders — especially young ones — can facilitate opportunities for creative problem-solving to policy issues across partisan and generational lines. Here are two initiatives worth considering:
Blanket, nonpartisan and open primaries
It’s projected that 11 million registered independent voters are excluded from primary elections due to closed systems. But not every state conducts a closed primary.
Nebraska has been using “blanket primaries” for its unicameral legislature since 1937. All candidates, regardless of party, run together in one large primary and the candidates who receive the most votes proceed to the general election, with some states allowing the top two, top four or even top five candidates to advance.
The state of Washington has been using this process for congressional, state and local elections since 2008. In 2010, California, the nation’s most populous state, followed with almost an identical system. Most recently, Alaska implemented a blanket primary system in 2020. Advocates cite an increase in candidates and turnout among independent voters when primaries are open to all voters.
Ranked-choice voting
Reforms like ranked-choice voting also put power back in the hands of the people. By removing the all-or-nothing approach in our current system, we see opportunities for consensus candidates, innovative policy ideas and coalition building.
In an RCV election, voters rank their candidates in the preferred order. However, suppose no candidate receives a majority of votes. In that case, the candidate with the least number of votes has their ballots redistributed to voters’ second- or third-rank candidates until a candidate has secured a majority. New York City’s 2021 primary analysis revealed that campaigns altered their strategies to build coalitions beyond traditional voter bases.
Additionally, voting patterns told a story in a traditional voting system. For example, Eric Adams, now mayor, won the majority of head-to-head matchups against all candidates; however, there were instances in which he was listed as a second-choice to non-institutional candidates like Andrew Yang and doubled his support. In addition, there were clear preferences for the women candidates in specific neighborhoods. The Board of Elections reported increased voter turnout, with nearly 1 million residents participating in the RCV election compared to 770,000 voters eight years prior.
Political polarization gives an illusion that society is more divided than we are. In fixing how we do primaries, we change who participates in our civic systems and create a democracy that works better for us all.
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.