Griffiths is a contributing writer.
While the Democratic contest was quickly condensing into a two-man race, 18 minimally known presidential aspirants were convening for a sprawling discussion on Wednesday.
Though billed as a debate among independents, organizers said the gathering was really more an intervention on a broken system — a moment to give candidates on the margins an opportunity to rail against the Republican and Democratic duopoly, and to show how rivals can discuss policies more civilly than the polarized shouting that marks so much political discourse.
"One thing that's clear is that the political system we have right now is not serving us well. Worst of all, it doesn't even allow for straightforward solutions to be part of the conversation. That's why we're creating this platform for a new national dialogue," said Christina Tobin, who created the Free and Equal Elections Foundation, which staged the livestreamed event at a hotel in downtown Chicago.
To create a more comprehensive discussion and a more thoughtful tone, where sound bites were not necessary for candidates unspooling views that stretched across the ideological spectrum, Tobin moderated a pair of debates among nine candidates each – both of them lasting three and a half hours.
"There's a large and growing political reform wave that is slowly but surely winning transformational changes at the local level, but you wouldn't know it from listening to the mainstream political coverage. It's past time for democracy itself to be part of the national conversation," said Eli Beckerman, founder of Open The Debates, the debate's co-host.
Though the debate included topics that ranged from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to mandatory vaccinations, the conversation largely focused on political reform and the obstacles third-party and independent candidates face nationwide -- starting with the fall presidential debates.
"Democrats and Republicans will stop at nothing to squash any other voice from being heard," said Libertarian Jo Jorgensen. "It's how they stay in power. What most Americans don't realize is that the debate commission is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican and Democratic parties."
While venting frustration at rules that restrict access to the nationally televised debates, candidates also deliberated the finer points of an array of other proposals for making the political process more democratic and representative of the national will: ranked-choice voting, the rival alternative called approval voting, efforts to make it easier for partisan outsiders to get on the ballot, public financing of campaigns, regulating money in politics and various plans for altering the rules of the Electoral College.
"Our country is in crisis. But it's not the first time we've ever been in crisis. I've spent my career teaching American history. And every time that we have a period of crisis we also have a period of creativity, where lots of new ideas pop up, and many of those ideas pop up from third parties," said American Solidarity Party nominee Brian Carroll.
"I think we need more transparency in our current system first, and more options to be used at the local level. We need to really think this through," Libertarian Erik Gerhardt said in urging a go-slow approach to a nationwide refashioning of the election system,.
The debate was notable for how infrequently the candidates talked beyond their two-minute limits, interrupted one another, spoke out of turn or made a disparaging comment about somebody else on stage.
Organizers made an effort to exclude dozens of people who say they're running for president on the true margins of reality. More than two-dozen people qualified for an invitation because they are seeking the nominations of one of the five parties that have primaries and are on the ballot in at least two states — Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, Green and Constitution — or are independents running the bureaucratic traps to get on the ballots of at least two states.
The candidates with hope of gaining some traction for their cause often point to a recent USA Today survey in which 65 percent said they support"making it easier for third-party and independent candidates to run for office."
Independent Mark Charles, a member of the Navajo Nation, said he thought the event provided "a dialogue that our nation's simplistic two-party system does not know how to have."
Tobin said she hopes the event is the beginning of a tour of open presidential debates that are inclusive and focused on solutions. FEEF has not announced when or where a second event might take place.
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.