David Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
Trump is the man in the arena, as the fate of our democracy has so often revolved around this one man's performances. He may indeed fit the description of the man in the arena in the famous speech by President Teddy Roosevelt at the Sorbonne in Paris, France on April 23, 1910:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
This is an incomplete comparison to Trump, as pieced from Roosevelt’s message. Roosevelt goes on to say the following:
A democratic republic such as ours—an effort to realize in its full sense government by, of, and for the people—represents the most gigantic of all possible social experiments, the one fraught with great responsibilities alike for good and evil. The success of republics like yours and like ours means the glory, and our failure the despair, of mankind; and for you and for us the question of the quality of the individual citizen is supreme. Under other forms of government, under the rule of one man or very few men, the quality of the leaders is all-important.
And so it is the quality of the individual that must reign supreme. This man (meaning Trump) in the arena today is quite skillful at misleading himself as he first deceives himself so he can better deceive others. Today, as we watch Trump abandon both his friends and the Constitution of the United States, there are far too few who believe like Roosevelt that the individual citizen is supreme.
There are exceptions of course and former Vice President Mike Pence is one:
“Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” the former vice president said shortly after the indictment of Donald Trump.
Of course those who believe in Trump will say he is the embodiment of the man Roosevelt described; one who fights against his critics, one who gets up when knocked down, and one with incredible tenacity. Yet, we must also prepare to defend democracy from autocratic tendencies reframed as heroic antics as the politicization of our justice system by Trump and his co-conspirators has just begun.
As we watch the spectacle play out before us, a phrase coined by P.T. Barnum, showman, businessman and politician of the early 1800’s comes to mind; “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
Barnum, of course, was referring to the performances of his con-men at carnivals and circuses of the time. Call Trump what you may: con artist, snake oil salesman, huckster, or charlatan, he is a master of the game. The successful con artist plays by certain rules; of course, they are his own, not those of civil society. To succeed the con artist must exaggerate, change the subject, and convince the buyer of his great success. In this case the American voter is the buyer, oftentimes conned to praise the con artist for solutions to problems he himself authored.
The con artist relies on the worst instincts in his audiences to make the sale; emotions of fear, being better than other people, envy, and greed. To be successful he must bring out the worst in his customer (i.e. the voter), vanishing from responsibility once the trap of the con is laid and set. But this is not to diminish the con man's ability; he pulls complicated and delicate strings, establishing himself as the man in the arena with unique responsibility. We are already witnessing the accusations and innuendos, the misinformation and vilification of those within the Justice Department.
Will we find the courage as a nation to have our voices heard to protect and defend our democratic republic for future generations? Will we understand that, whether we are Democrats, Republicans or Independents, what we have in common is stronger than what separates us. Will we have the wisdom and confidence to overcome our current circumstances? Will our nation be an example of the profiles in courage expressed by President John F. Kennedy over 50 years ago:
“In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience – the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men – each man must decide for himself the course he will follow.”
The survival of our democratic republic will require each of us individually to have the courage to take action outside of our normal comfort zone. If we each do so, our individual courage will inspire others to do the same and be the galvanizing force to change what is possible.
Will we have that courage?
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.