On November 16 following Election Day, U.S. Senators Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Angus King (I-Maine) reintroduced the Voter Choice Act to support adoption of a ranked choice voting (RCV) model for elections, also known as an “instant runoff.”
The Voter Choice Act provides $40 million in federal matching grants for local and state governments that choose to adopt ranked choice voting, covering up to 50 percent of the implementation cost. The 2021-2022 version of the legislation passed the U.S. House as an amendment to the Protecting our Democracy Act (PODA).
Ranked choice voting (RCV) is a simple but important change to our voting system that gives us more choice and more voice to voters. Instead of agonizing over which candidate to choose, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no one receives a majority of the vote, the candidate with the least votes is removed, and voters who selected them as their first choice have their votes reallocated to their second choice. The process continues until one candidate has a majority. This way, we no longer need to worry about voting strategically or otherwise “wasting” our votes.
Proponents of RCV believe that candidates are incentivized to build positive, issues-focused campaigns and more motivated to reach communities and voters they might otherwise have ignored.
The Voter Choice Act authorizes $40 million in federal grants to support state and local governments that choose to transition to RCV. Grants would support up to 50 percent of the transition cost, including through the purchase of voting equipment and tabulation software, ballot design, educational materials, and voter outreach.
“The Voter Choice Act is a sensible way to support the fastest-growing nonpartisan voting reform in the country,” said Deb Otis, Director of Research and Policy at FairVote, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for better elections. “Ranked choice voting makes our elections better by giving voters better choices and rewarding candidates who run issues-driven campaigns. While most cities actually save money by using RCV to replace runoffs or two-round contests, the Voter Choice Act will give more Americans the opportunity to try RCV – by helping to offset any voter education and implementation costs with approaches that further boost election security and voter confidence."
“As partisanship continues to harm our democracy and impede progress, we need to make government work for the American people,” said Senator Michael Bennet. “Ranked choice voting gives people more options at the ballot box, increases political competition, eliminates costly runoffs, and rewards candidates who appeal to the broadest swath of voters. Our bill provides vital support for states and local governments that choose to make this important transition.”
Senator Angus King of Maine added that, “In the face of threats that undercut the fundamental right to vote for millions of Americans, we must act to protect our democracy,” said King. “The Voter Choice Act would help communities advance the vast majority of voters’ priorities by instituting ranked choice voting, like the system that Maine already uses for its primary and federal elections. In such a polarized political climate, this bill would force candidates to appeal to a broader swath of their electorate rather than a small, outspoken faction. We must continue working towards improving our great democracy and that begins with restoring faith in our electoral system.”
Ranked choice voting is the fastest-growing nonpartisan voting reform in the nation, and has now grown to over 50 states, counties, and cities home to approximately 16 million Americans across the nation. On Election Day 2023, RCV won in all five cities where it was on the ballot – it has now won 27 city ballot measures in a row.
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.