Davies is a journalist and podcaster. He runs the podcast consultancy, DaviesContent and co-hosts “How Do We Fix It?” and “Let’s Find Common Ground.”
Every six months I’m reminded of the helpful saying: “fall back, spring forward.” And so it was on Sunday when we lost an hour of sleep and had to wander around the house and change the time on all of our non-internet-connected watches, appliances and clocks.
Such a drag, right? Opinion polls report widespread support for a proposal to lock the clock and scrap our biannual winding ritual. Last year, by unanimous consent, the U.S. Senate passed “The Sunshine Protection Bill” to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.
The current practice “makes no sense,” proclaimed the bill’s sponsor, Marco Rubio. “It’s time to end it.” Not one of his fellow Senators stood up to object.
“I am 100% anti-time change,” wrote Bloomberg View columnist, economist Allison Schrager last week. “The economic arguments for the change were always questionable, but our modern lifestyles make jumping back and forth by an hour more nonsensical than ever.”
But is it really such a big deal to be a bit confused or irritated for a day to two each year?
And be careful what you wish for. Often the only thing worse than a widely ridiculed tradition is what we decide to replace it with.
If Senator Rubio gets his way, he may become the most unpopular politician in America on early winter mornings after Standard Time is done away with. If he has ambitions to run for president again, Rubio should remember that the primary season begins early in the year.
Farmers aren’t the only ones who’ll be furious. Commuters and parents will also want to change back to the time change. Imagine driving to work on a dark icy January morning, or shivering with the kids waiting for the school bus when it is pitch black at 7:30 a.m.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine— stern guardians of our right to spend more than seven hours each night in bed— supports ending the time change, but wants permanent standard time instead of daylight saving time.
“Standard time is closely aligned with the position of the sun, which is important for the body because sunlight is the most powerful external cue for the human circadian rhythm,” the Academy said in a recent statement opposing Senator Rubio’s bill. “This internal ‘body clock’ regulates the timing of alertness, sleepiness, and other biological functions.”
While that might make scientific sense, all-year-round standard time will be a bummer in the summer. One of the pleasures of late June and early July is sitting outside and enjoying the warm air and evening light.
Unlike most of my fellow citizens, I kind of enjoy the inconvenient ritual of changing clocks— especially spring forward. At this time of year we have a quirky yet welcome reminder of longer, warmer days to come.
Let’s accept that whatever change we adopt, it will make some folks howling mad. In this case it may be much better to stay with what we have.
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.