Levine is an elections integrity fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, which develops strategies to deter and defend against autocratic efforts to interfere in democratic institutions.
Fueled by false conspiracy theories about a stolen presidential election, at least 19 states passed measures in 2021 that make it unnecessarily harder to cast, count and/or certify votes. A Texas law known as SB 1 may be the worst of the lot, and the state’s March 1 primary elections could provide the first hints of how such efforts will impact the conduct of the 2022 midterm elections and beyond. With voting now upon us, concerns abound, but it’s not too late to begin mitigating some of them.
First, the challenges. Thanks to SB 1, Texas applications for mail ballots must now include either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a voter’s Social Security number, depending on which one the voter provided when they registered to vote. Because many voters don’t recall which number they provided at registration, and local election officials don’t have reliable ways to cross-reference this information, thousands of applications across the state are now being rejected. More recently, thousands of voters who returned completed mail ballots have also had them rejected by local officials, due to similar problems with the ID requirements in SB 1. Either of these issues could impact whether some voters are successfully able to vote in the primary.
SB 1 has also banned several procedures that maintained the security of the voting process while making it more accessible in 2020, including drive-thru voting, 24-hour voting and the distribution of mail-in ballot applications. These prohibitions will undoubtedly lead to more in-person voting on Election Day, which makes it more likely that an attack against or failure in a jurisdiction’s election infrastructure on March 1 could disenfranchise larger numbers of voters.
Texas also appears to be taking steps that undermine confidence in a system that has worked well. Although the Texas secretary of state who oversaw the 2020 election declared it “ smooth and secure,” Texas has taken a number of steps that seem at odds with this declaration. For example, SB 1 empowers partisan poll watchers to roam nearly anywhere in the polling place, with little recourse for malfeasance. This could lead to more interference in voting, including the intimidation of voters and election workers.
Despite being a bill ostensibly aimed at improving the security of Texas elections, SB 1 missed the opportunity to do just that. It failed to push for the quick replacement of paperless voting systems and did not include robust requirements for a post-election audit — two of the well-established ways to boost election security.
Over 92 percent of votes in the 2020 presidential election were cast on a paper ballot, which proved to be critical in the days following the election, when falsehoods about hacked voting machines began to spread among the public. States with paper-based systems can rebut baseless assertions of this kind by hand counting portions of the ballots to verify the accuracy of their machine-counted results. But jurisdictions whose systems produce no independently auditable record can’t as easily disprove such claims. According to Verified Voting, about 12 percent of Texas’ registered voters live in jurisdictions using paperless voting systems for all voters.
Notwithstanding the shortcomings of Texas’ elections system, those participating in the March primary should not allow pessimism to turn into resignation or despair. It’s important that Texas voters vote (early, if possible), whether in-person or by mail. Because SB 1 made several changes to when and where many Texans can cast a ballot, they should reach out to their local election officials to confirm their options and come up with a plan to vote.
Texans should also try to serve as poll workers because SB 1 is likely to increase the number of votes cast in person at Election Day polling places. Persons with disabilities or language-access issues could face more difficulty getting assistance than before because SB 1 established potential criminal penalties for those who assist voters. Additionally, some voters could be more likely to find themselves subject to harassment by partisan poll watchers. It’s critical that the individuals staffing polling places have the customer service skills to work with poll watchers while ensuring a smooth and secure experience for these voters.
Finally, it’s important that Texans, in concert with local election officials and other trusted sources, continue to amplify accurate information about the primary while combating false information. A lot of changes have been made to Texas elections since 2020; it’s imperative that Texas voters be aware of them so that they can make informed decisions about when and how to cast their ballot.
Texas’ 2022 election may not be as smooth as its 2020 presidential contest, but that shouldn’t prevent election officials and voters from taking steps to ensure that the election is safe and secure.
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.