Molineaux is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
It has been nearly two weeks since I spent five hours on a flight with my new friend, “Jane.” Last week I shared my experience in listening to Jane and my observations about her. This week, I want to share Jane’s impact on me and what I also observed about myself.
I was initially irritated when Jane didn’t read my “leave me alone” body language on the plane including my noise-canceling headphones, phone in hand, etc. As an introvert, I love the anonymity of air travel where I can go into my own bubble and be with my own thoughts. Once I realized that she was seeking human connection, I surrendered to the idea that there was a reason she was so insistent. What I didn’t mention in my column last week was the third person in our row of seats – a 40ish man who happened to agree with her on most topics. He was in and out of our conversation, alternately engaging, writing and sleeping.
There were several times while Jane was sharing her story that I wanted to tell her she was wrong and had mis-read the situation or missed other facts that would contradict her beliefs. Yet I felt flat-footed, because I haven’t spent thousands of hours researching primary sources, as she has in her daily life.
I am skeptical by nature and question the truth when presented with things offered as the truth. I don’t seek the truth like a crusader and perhaps that’s why I am more open to examination instead of blind acceptance of statements of fact. If a news story is sensationalized, I count it less. If it is “just the facts,” I count it more. My research is less in-depth. So my worldview is less fixed on a particular core belief than Jane’s belief that there is a small group of powerful elites trying to kill us.
Within my worldview, I believe that we are writing our own stories – past, present and future. We have the facts – what happened without any assigned meaning. We have interpretations – where we assign the meaning to what happened. Our individual stories live in our particular mix of those two factors. This is how two children can grow up in the same home and have vastly different experiences within the family.
This is our collective conundrum. With so many possible interpretations of the facts, how do we find enough common stories to share our nation with those who are very different from ourselves?
While Jane’s theories and experiences didn’t trigger me (this time), I have seen my progressive and liberal friends be triggered. Instead of listening, they offer what I call “liberal arrogance” that they are too smart to fall for the conspiracy theories. In an offhand way, instead of seeing the person as whole, they see someone as stupid or gullible.
People who believe in conspiracy theories are neither dumb nor gullible. The pleasures of blind acceptance of conspiracy theories are many. As we seek to make sense of things that don’t make sense, we gravitate to theories that confirm what we may want to believe for a variety of reasons. Mostly, conspiracy theories are an interpretation of some cherry-picked fact, around which we make meaning. When conditions are right – usually when there is economic uncertainty and a rapidly changing culture – people blame the elites for harming our lives.
Jane helped me to think more deeply about how we unwittingly denigrate each other by ignoring those around us. She helped me see that engagement isn’t supposed to always be pleasurable. But it is supposed to help us connect with each other, to sense-make collectively so we can see ourselves in each other’s stories.
We have a story problem, not an intelligence problem.
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.