With almost 2,000 attendants from across the country, the Unrig Summit in Nashville over the weekend stands as the biggest public gathering to date of people interested in tackling the challenges of our current democracy.
After three days of speeches, panel discussions and nonprofit groups hawking their widely disparate ideas for "fixing the system," it was tempting to view the gathering as a cacophony of voices dissatisfied with the status quo – but nowhere close to a chorus behind a galvanizing solution. But these five moments stood out for sending important messages about the future of the fledgling democracy reform movement.
No. 5: Business in the tent
One of the best-attended panel discussions Saturday was led by a former Apple executive, Sarah Bonk, now working full time to sell the notion that the influence which corporate interests have over the government will only be weakened if a critical mass of American businesses conclude it's in their best interests to lessen their reliance on enormous political and lobbying spending in pursuit of profit targets.
Much of the energy for bettering the system undeniably comes from the political left, so it was a sobering moment for many in the audience to hear their passion will only get them so far unless the big corporate interests they so regularly disdain are willing to limit campaign and policy influence outlays.
No 4: One man's story
The notion that a more expensive democracy can deliver tangible benefits to people on society's margins was highlighted no more movingly than by Desmond Meade, whose narrative of grassroots political success after personal failing has made him a breakout star on the inspirational speaking circuit in the past year. He spent three years in prison for drug and weapons convictions before earning a law degree, but was able to register to vote in Orlando in January thanks to the Florida ballot initiative he helped steer to victory last fall as the head of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition.
The franchise for as many as 1.4 million other convicted felons in Florida is also supposed to be revived, but Meade was the one who had convention goers on their feet several times with his simple message that "love your neighbor as yourself" is the best slogan for democracy reform.
No. 3: Youth movement
Unrig attendees skewed decidedly older, whiter and richer than the national electorate. But a clear conference theme came from those people lamenting that their moment to secure a more functional and cleaner democracy may have passed their generation by – and counting on a younger and more ethnically diverse group of leaders to step up.
And several were on hand for prominent roles, including 22-year-old conservative environmental activist Benji Backer and Emma Gonzalez, one of the most politically active survivors of last year's mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla. She wowed the convention with a rousing call to set new limits on the flow of money in elections in order to limit the influence the National Rifle Association and other Second Amendment rights groups have on the congressional agenda.
No. 2: The unmentioned
At more than a dozen panel discussions and in several dozen speeches, the name of the incumbent president was not mentioned once. And of the handful of times Donald Trump was cited by grassroots activists, scholars and political players, it was a passing reference in almost each instance.
His almost complete absence from the conversation was a pointed reminder that, while most attendees clearly hold Trump himself responsible for a newfound rattling of democratic norms, the issues they came to deliberate in Nashville (the dominant role of money in politics, the shaky state of voting rights and the limits in electoral competition, principally) were hobbling the functionality of democracy long before this administration began – and ought to find a place on the national policymaking agenda no matter what happens in the 2020 election.
No. 1: The discordant finale
A we're-all-in-this-together spirit of collaboration and patient listening lasted until the final session, when a wave of discord generated the convention's most newsworthy and cautionary moment.
The marquee speaker of the weekend was former Starbucks CEO Howard Shultz, who is pondering generous spending from his own fortune to mount an independent run for president with good government reform as a campaign centerpiece. But he was hectored and booed unlike anyone else. A dozen attendees stood to derisively chant "Billionaires for president!" the first time he tried to talk, and then the room filled with catcalls and jeering when he sought to rebut the argument that his candidacy would at best be remembered as spoiling the chances for the Democratic nominee and assuring Trump's re-election. The rest of his speech was welcomed with tepid applause at best.
It hardly mattered that Schultz endorsed a favorite cause in the hall, using ranked-choice voting to break the Republican and Democratic duopoly on power, and frequently offered versions of "our democracy is being threatened by a rigged system" in taking about campaign financing.
In their lukewarm rebuff of Schultz, the activists who traveled to Nashville to lament the current state of democracy and deliberate all manner of aspirational "fixes" came off as much more interested in the pragmatics of the coming campaign than in rewarding a potential national figure for trying to speak their language.
(Full disclosure: The conference was organized byRepresentUs, which seeks to end "the legalized corruption that has come to define modern politics," but among the major sponsors was Issue One, the political advocacy group incubating The Firewall.)
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.