Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
An unlikely friendship of two secular artists drives a musical outreach program from the U.S. Episcopal Church. Kory Caudill is a self-described “Appalachian hillbilly” raised in Kentucky who plays blindingly fast and beautiful piano. Anthony “Wordsmith” Parker is a Baltimore Hip-Hop artist, State Department cultural Ambassador, and nonprofit leader.
Years ago their musical careers combined when they decided to team up to lead the eclectic mix of music that is the Concert for the Human Family (CFHF). This non-religious concert series features hip-hop, pop, rock, piano and country with a greater mission – to unite people of all faiths, races and political beliefs.
I first met Wordsmith years ago when we teamed up to create a video protesting the shameful and now eliminated pro-Confederate state song, “Maryland, My Maryland.” As Director of the Bridge Alliance sponsored project Light4America, I saw the great potential of their musical vision for opening hearts and minds. I said I wanted to work with the CFHF to expand their interfaith reach and ties to secular causes. Together, we decided to launch the CFHF “Faith in Peace” concerts.
On February 17, 2023, Kory and Wordsmith joined forces with pop band “The Romantics” a week before the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine to host the first ever Faith in Peace Concert to support humanitarian relief through the nonprofit, United Help Ukraine. Wally Palmar, the band’s Ukrainian-American lead singer, presented the newly released anti-war anthem “No War” that he co-wrote with Canadian guitar wizard Jack De Keyzer.
Rotary was the next natural partner for promoting peace. Rotary International has long made promoting peace one of its core focus areas and has increasingly helped Americans promote peace at home, not just abroad. On June 17, 2023, Kory, Wordsmith and the CFHF team are joining Rotary District 7620 (Washington, DC and parts of Maryland) for a Faith In Peace Concert in the spectacular and historic Sixth & I Synagogue in Washington, DC. The live-streamed concert will highlight the Rotary values like the “Four Way Test”, focusing on truth, fairness, goodwill and inclusivity, with Rotarians participating in the show.
The concert will help tell the story of partner nonprofits like Citizen Connect and Rotary clubs, which also receive 50 percent of ticket sales. Country First, a pro-Democracy and pro-civility movement founded by former U.S. Representative Adam Kinzinger, will help boost the live-stream performance.
The "Shared Values" theme of the concert will focus on Democracy, Diversity and Decency with a special focus on Juneteenth and Pride Month. We’ll celebrate District 7620’s first openly gay outgoing District Governor and welcome the district’s first female African American District Governor. The concert will share the story of Black Georgetown, a DC nonprofit that supports the Mt. Zion and Female Union Band Cemetery, an African American cemetery saved from condo construction oblivion.
“This truly is a concert series I’ve been working towards since I was four years old,” says Kory Caudill. “I used to watch Yanni - Live at the Acropolis - every day and hope that I’d be able to create music like that someday. And now it’s a reality. But on an even deeper level, I hope that this concert series allows me to build a platform to make the world my kids live in a better place. And I believe the message and the music these concerts deliver can do just that.”
Get tickets here for the June 17, 2023 event and register here for the video stream airing at 8pm on Juneteenth, Monday, June 19, 2023.
Use the Discount Code faithinpeace2023 for a 50% discount.
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.