Swearengin is an author, emotional & spiritual well-being coach, podcaster and content creator through his social media presence as Unconventional Pastor Paul. He talks religion and politics at times joined by his wife Ashley, a former elected official and community leader. Find him at Pastor-Paul.com.
I’m a recovering rightwing media addict. Whew, feels good to get that off my chest.
That fact makes me deeply interested in the recently revealed evidence of Fox News leaders knowing there was no truth to Trump’s 2020 election fraud lies, yet they continued to platform guests and stories that fueled this misinformation. While distressing that a “news” organization blatantly lied, it may be even more worrisome that Fox News leadership were certain they would lose viewership if they told the truth. Fox demonstrated their understanding that the “rage porn” news/entertainment phenomenon has addicted their audience to big lies.
I know this is true, because I had to be healed from a Rush Limbaugh addiction.
Limbaugh’s brilliance enabled him to basically invent an entirely new genre of media and he made millions. But, I believe he did so at great cost to our culture. When mental health seems to be a nationwide struggle, how much does such culture war media add to negative impacts?
Years ago, I found myself extremely agitated while driving.
“What’s wrong with me?” I asked my empty car out loud. A segment from Limbaugh’s show came to mind and I realized I was angry at some perceived “enemy” Limbaugh had pointed me towards. The drug of rightwing media angst was having its effect and it made me uncomfortable. I decided to try an experimental “Rush fast.” The results were stunning.
I’m only half joking when I say five days without rightwing, conservative media made the sky turn blue again. I quickly found that the constant anger thrown at me by Rush, Hannity and others had a profound impact. In my later work as an evangelical pastor, I’d find angry, anxious people who regularly took in heavy doses of rightwing media. Every time they followed my encouragement to give that media up for a week, that person found a significant improvement in their emotional and spiritual health.
But, I know it’s not easy for people to push away from rightwing media.
Media entertainment must drive people to emote. Emotion brings connection, and connection brings the follower back again and again. Hosts like Limbaugh, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith and Howard Stern don’t care if you hate them, or hate the subject of their topic. As long as the emotions of anger or fear are stoked, they know they’ve locked in their followers. For a generation, Rightwing media has perfected the creation of emotional anger. They know their job is to get the audience angry and keep them angry – even at the cost of truth.
A 2014 University of Nebraska study found that conservative leaning people tended to carry a “negativity bias” in their lives. In other words, those of a conservative political bent were “physiologically more attuned to negative (threatening, disgusting) stimuli in their environments.” The scientists had backed up what my experiment had revealed to me – heavy doses of conservative media is addicting as it creates false fears and enemies to prey on our primal need to survive.
I often say “The Religious Right is Religiously Wrong.” Isn’t it interesting that much of the rightwing media audience are Christians despite their Biblical encouragement to meditate on “…whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely…” (Phil. 4:8.) Does intake of copious amounts of rage porn, masked as news, line up with this spiritual instruction?” Partisanship requires enemies; the Bible says divine spiritual alignment will make “even our enemies to be at peace with us.”
Some might say Left-leaning media has the same impact and I’m not going to argue that point here. I’m just very aware how many Christians adherents follow these conservative outlets and I’ve seen first-hand its destructive nature. It’s a far cry from the spiritual edict to desire truth. I hope one day again Christians can believe their bible when it says “truth will set you free.”
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.