Lynn Schmidt is a syndicated columnist and Editorial Board member with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
At the risk of sounding like someone suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome or TDS, those of us in the pro-democracy coalition need to start sounding the alarm, again. Our democracy is far from being out of the woods and we are headed for a trap.
TDS is usually used by supporters of the former president or some in the media to discredit criticisms of Trump’s words or actions. It is a way of reframing the debate by suggesting that those who speak out against Trump are incapable of discerning what they just witnessed. It is used to exhaust and disparage those who speak out in defense of liberal democratic values. My fear is that these attacks are working.
Last week former president Donald Trump released a poorly lit video in which he essentially says that Russia is not our enemy, our fellow Americans are. Think about that for a moment or shall I say, discern what we are witnessing. For those of us who love our democratic republic and not only hope it survives but want to strengthen it, we need to start paying attention, again. Here are a few noteworthy lines from Trump’s video, each of which are more frightening than the next:
“The State Department, the defense bureaucracy, the intelligence services, and all of the rest need to be completely overhauled and reconstituted to fire the Deep Staters and put America first.”
“Finally, we have to finish the process we began under my administration of fundamentally reevaluating NATO's (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) purpose and NATO's mission.”
“But the greatest threat to Western civilization today is not Russia. It’s probably, more than anything else, ourselves and some of the horrible USA hating people representing us.”
Most Americans may not be listening to Trump but make no mistake, Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping certainly are.
A former president of the United States and the leading candidate for the 2024 presidential race of one of our two major political parties is telling us and the world that he sides with Putin over Americans. Trump would rather we ally with the same man who the International Criminal Court just issued an arrest warrant for concerning war crimes. Earlier this week, Xi visited Putin in Moscow. A Kremlin statement announcing Xi’s visit "at the invitation" of the Russian leader to discuss "issues of further development of comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction between Russia and China."
Trump reiterated his plans to dismantle NATO. Here’s a reminder that NATO was created in 1949 to serve three purposes: “deterring Soviet expansionism, forbidding the revival of nationalist militarism in Europe through a strong North American presence on the continent, and encouraging European political integration.” While Ukraine is not a NATO member, NATO has committed both political and practical assistance to Ukraine. Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton wrote in his book “The Room Where it Happened” that he had to convince Trump not to quit NATO in the middle of a 2018 summit. “In a second Trump term, I think he may well have withdrawn from NATO,” Bolton said. “And I think Putin was waiting for that.”
Last week, former Vice President Mike Pence spoke at the annual Gridiron Club Dinner in Washington, DC. He called Jan. 6, 2021 “a tragic day” and went on to say, “President Trump was wrong. I had no right to overturn the election and his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know that history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”
Pundits have since been criticizing Pence for not testifying before the U.S. House January 6 Select Committee and for resisting Special Counsel Jack Smith’s subpoena. While those criticisms are valid, we are missing the broader point. We are skipping over his actual words. Pence is also sounding an alarm. Granted it might be more like a quiet whistle than an alarm, but it’s out there.
Now is the time for the Republican party, sans Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who is also anti-Ukraine, and all others who support democracy here and abroad, to figure out how to shut Trump down before it is too late. Of course, GOP elites have cowardly missed the multiple off ramps from Trump’s and the Republican base voter’s hold on the party. Let’s encourage them not to skip this most important one.
Trump is telling us exactly what he intends to do. It is our own fault if we don’t wake up and recognize this before it is too late. We need to reject the numbness, stop turning against one another, and turn together and repudiate Trump. Our fellow Americans are not the enemy here. Instead, let us, in a bipartisan way, champion democracy. Speak the truth and fight for our democratic values.
To quote the famous line from the 1986 film “The Fly”, if we don’t stop Trump now, we should “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”
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.