Lockard has a Master’s Degree in English Literature from the University of Northern Iowa (1994) and has continued classes at the Writer’s Workshop in Iowa City. She writes regularly for "The Courier", a regional newspaper, and has published several short stories and poetry. Amy and her husband live in Cedar Falls, Iowa with the youngest three of their eight children.
Loitering slow, the future creepeth; arrow-swift, the present sweepeth, and motionless forever stands the past. (Schiller)
Except during pandemics, as the one we’re still spinning from and desperately hoping not to be plunged back into. That possibility, having the nightmarish quality of an infinitely rerunning “Twilight Zone” episode, combined with the surreal projection of candidates for the next presidential election, is more than enough to keep us up at night.
Most, when speaking of events of the last five years, divide the time up, saying, “it occurred before the shut-down,” or “that happened during Covid,” or “it took place right after the pandemic.” Nearly swallowed by the time warp we were then living in, once the shut-downs took hold and everyone scrambled to “shelter in place” there was very little to distinguish one day from the next or even one month from another.
The “cure” then? Akin to a mad cook loose in a topsy-turvy kitchen. A dash of science, heavy doses of masks and shields, a dousing of rules. Add legions of renegade rule-breakers and more than a smattering of confusion, economic chaos, and financial devastation; throw in canceled weddings, graduations, funerals, and lonely deaths.
Our clocks imploded, our rhythms exploded, the usual markers of time, canceled, along with everything else. It is no wonder we have trouble re-regulating time now.
But that temporal Covid warp cannot be blamed for our current complacency. Since mid-March, 2019--collective groan—when we fell into that unreal reality, we have claimed to want to pull ourselves up, to get on with it, to fully live our lives.
We now have the experience to prevent us from falling back into the mayhem of another pandemic. And the wherewithal not to repeat the pathetic 2020 presidential election.
Almost half of Democrats and over half of Republicans say the political parties are doing a poor job of upholding democracy. (Courier, AP, July 18, 2023)
Yet, here we are, presumably retreating to the former presidential election, second act, with the same two men who ran four years ago, older but no wiser. Are these really the only candidates for “leader of the free world” we can come up with? Are we to be left again with the choice between despot and doddering?
Since “original” Covid 19, a parade of variants made their appearance: Alpha, Beta, Delta, Omicron, etc., and news is now circulating of a harsher virus, with 30 mutations, riding in with the winter winds. This new strain, BA.2.86 or “Pirola,” is projected to be more invasive and potentially more potent than its predecessors. We cannot allow this runaway “Greek alphabet” to trigger another worldwide tragedy. We must be proactive.
It’s time-- it is always time-- for leadership.
“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” (Winston Churchill)
So, let’s move forward. Let’s use our knowledge of how--and how not--to handle a pandemic and be prepared. Let’s look at new political possibilities, new candidates, possibly a third party, and break this stymied system.
Let’s put our pandemic and political experience into preemptive action. How? By becoming involved, by refusing to become despondent, by believing we can.
And we might try channeling Abraham Lincoln, who said, “Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.”
Let’s find a way.
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.