Richard Davies is a solutions journalist and podcast consultant. He co-hosts two bi-weekly podcasts: "Let's Find Common Ground" for commongroundcommittee.org, "How Do We Fix It?"
A lot of people I know are reading and chatting about a book with a very blunt title that was written by a wise 89-year-old woman from Sweden.
“The Gentle Swedish Art of Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family From a Lifetime of Clutter” is the title in the U.S. In Sweden they call it “Döstädning.” In our society, where we are rather squeamish about discussing death, we might prefer to call this sensible practice “streamlining.”
“Döstädning” means removing unnecessary stuff that you’ve collected over many years and making your home nice and orderly when you think the time is coming closer for you to leave the planet. Döstädning is a hot topic among the over 60’s crowd—those we politely refer to as “senior citizens.”
Death cleaning, or getting our affairs in order, makes perfect sense, and saves precious time for our loved ones when we are gone.
The book’s author, Margareta Magnusson, writes with a dash of wry humor in a direct manner. Some of her prose is so lovely and wistful that there is a hint of poetry. Magnusson’s next book, soon to be published here, is called "The Swedish Art of Aging Well: Life Wisdom From Someone Who Will (probably) Die Before You."
I plan to read that one as well.
Around here in Southeast Connecticut those who ignore Margareta Magnusson’s advice sometimes fill me with sadness. Many old folks live alone and haven’t moved in years. They occupy houses with attics and garages full of stuff. They never threw away their old rarely used possessions.
When we die we often leave it to those we love the most to perform the monumental, dreary task of finding a home or a dumpster for everything from our old armchairs and tables right down to thimbles, paper-clips and pins. We should start early, or in my case, now.
Myra, a dear old friend of mine in her mid-80’s, died a couple of months ago. I called one of her sons the other day and asked: “How are you doing?” He told me a sad story. He loved his mom very much but sorting through all her stuff has been very hard. Especially the old photographs. “What do we throw away, what do we keep,” he wondered. It has been emotional and exhausting.
Perhaps “Döstädning” should apply not only to our personal affairs, but public life too.
Far too many elected politicians are too slow to step away from their time in the sun and leave the stage. The problem is more pronounced in the U.S. than in many other nations, where perhaps more elected officials know that they have a life after politics. In November Charles Grassley of Iowa was re-elected to another six year term in the Senate. He is 89.
If President Biden runs again next year — as he’s expected to do — and wins a second term in the White House, he’ll be 86 by the time he leaves office.
It’s quite possible that in 2024 Biden will face former President Trump (76) in a rematch. What a sorry prospect.
The elderly have a great deal of experience and wisdom but should they remain in highly demanding stressful jobs beyond their time? Baby boomers like me still have a lot to give (and write), but there should be time limits or term limits on those who hang around too long.
Last month, 82-year-old Nancy Pelosi had the good grace to step down as House Speaker. In a recent interview with Maureen Dowd in The New York Times, Pelosi said that “It’s just the time, and that’s it. Upward and onward. I’m thrilled with the transition. I think it was beautiful.”
Her daughter Alexandra, a documentary filmmaker, told Dowd that “my mother is at peak happiness. I’ve never seen her like this.”
What a splendid exit. May the rest of us know when to face up to later years of our life with similar good grace.
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.