Kull is Program Director of the Program for Public Consultation.
Lewitus is a Research Analyst at Voice of the People whose research interests focus on policy, public opinion and democracy reform.
Thomas is Vice President of Voice of the People and Director of Voice of the People Action. Thomas is an organizer and government relations professional with years of experience working in campaigns, advocacy, and policy research.
As we know all too well, the federal government has failed to address many problems facing our nation, largely due to increasing partisan polarization that results in near-constant gridlock. Some speculate this polarization is a reflection of the American public. However, what we have found in our public opinion research is that majorities of Republicans and Democrats actually agree on numerous policies – nearly 200 common ground proposals.
One of the most contentious areas of partisan head-butting in Congress over the last decade has been national immigration policy. In the national debate, each side has seemingly opposite and mutually exclusive priorities and solutions. Among the public, however, the story is quite different. There is substantial bipartisan agreement on a number of major proposals.
There are currently around 11 million undocumented immigrants living, and often working, in the U.S. Not since 1986 under President Reagan has the U.S. provided a path to citizenship to such people. In 2013, another major effort was made, when a bipartisan group of Congresspeople introduced a bill that would provide a path to citizenship to most undocumented people. Due to the usual Congressional gridlock, it never even received a vote in the House despite passing in the Senate. This proposal is popular among the public. A bipartisan majority of 74% support a path to citizenship for undocumented persons who do not have a criminal record and have been here for several years, including 55% of Republicans and 92% of Democrats. Pew Research Center’s 2020 poll on the same proposal found nearly identical results: 75% in support nationally, including 57% of Republicans and 89% of Democrats.
Providing a path to citizenship to those brought to the U.S. illegally as children, also known as Dreamers, is favored by an even larger bipartisan majority of eight-in-ten, including 69% of Republicans and 92% of Democrats. This proposal has had the backing of both Republican and Democratic Congresspeople, and has passed the House with bipartisan support, but did not get a vote in the Senate. Pew Research Center found similar bipartisan support.
How to reduce the number of illegal entries into the U.S. has been one of the most animated sources of disagreement between the parties. Proposals that focus on border security do not get partisan agreement among the public. Building a border wall is opposed by a majority (59%), including 85% of Democrats, but a majority of Republicans favor it (74%). When it comes to funding for border security in general, standard polling has found a majority of 53% believe we are spending too little, including 85% of Republicans, but a large majority of Democrats said we’re spending about the right amount or too much. ( AP-NORC poll, March 2023)
However, other proposals that aim to reduce illegal entries do get bipartisan support. Many people enter the U.S. seeking work and many U.S. companies seek out migrant labor. Requiring employers to run checks on all current and future employees to ensure they are legally able to work in the U.S., using the E-Verify system already in place, is supported by a bipartisan 73% (Republicans 80%, Democrats 68%). The 2013 effort at immigration reform also included this E-Verify mandate. Legislation since then has included this proposal, but has never received a vote as a stand-alone proposal.
Bringing more undocumented workers into the legal system has been another proposed strategy to reduce the number of people who are undocumented in the U.S. By better matching the number of work visas to the demand for labor, the argument goes, employers will be able to legally hire more migrants for jobs that most citizens do not want, many of which are seasonal. A bipartisan 69% support tripling the number of temporary non-farm work visas (Republicans 73%, Democrats 67%). Bipartisan majorities also support more general proposals to increase the number of visas for lower-skilled labor (National 77%, Republicans 66%, Democrats 87%), and for higher-skilled labor (National 80%, Republicans 72%, Democrats 86%).
The surveys used for this research differ from standard polls in that they provide respondents with background information and pro-con arguments, before they give their recommendation on a concrete policy tied to real legislation or executive action. These surveys come from the Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland, and the Deliberative Democracy Lab at Stanford University. A full list of common ground policies has been compiled as part of Voice of the People’s Common Ground of the American People project.
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.