South Carolina is poised to become the latest state to permit all voters to use an absentee ballot this fall because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Republican Gov. Henry McMaster's office says he will sign a measure, cleared during a special session of the General Assembly on Tuesday, that will suspend for the November election the state's normally strict excuse requirements for mail-in voting.
That leaves just five states still demanding a reason beyond fear of Covid-19 exposure for voting away from a polling place this fall: Texas, which has developed into the biggest presidential battleground, along with reliably Republican Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee.
South Carolina is joining 10 other states in going to a no-excuse system this year only because of the public health emergency. Its usual restrictions have led to about 5 percent of all votes being cast by mail in recent elections — a number that might now soar almost tenfold.
Tuesday's 115-1 vote in the state House followed a unanimous vote last week in the Senate, but that masked partisan divides over other proposed election easements for South Carolina's 3.4 million voters.
Citing concerns about potential fraud, the solid GOP majority repelled Democratic efforts to add two amendments to the bill. One would have ended the requirement for a witness signature on mailed ballot envelopes, sometimes tough to obtain at a time of social distancing. The other would have required the installation of ballot drop boxes across the state.
A federal judge suspended the witness requirement for the state's June primary, so it's possible the courts may weigh in again before November.
The new legislation extends the deadline for seeking an absentee ballot to four days before Election Day, so long as the application is made in person. But completed ballots will only get counted if received by election officials before polls close Nov. 3.
In a boon to local clerks hoping to provide relatively speedy returns, the bill allows them to check the signatures on envelopes and prepare the ballots for tabulating starting Nov. 1 — not on Election Day, as in the past.
President Trump looks highly likely to secure the state's nine electoral votes, which a Democrat last carried when Jimmy Carter won the White House 44 years ago. But enhanced turnout could boost the Democrats' chances of holding on to a House seat centered on Charleston and propelling their well-funded former state party chairman, Jaime Harrison, who is waging a vigorous if uphill challenge to Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham.
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.