Brian Cannon has been pursuing a singular goal for five and a half years as executive director of One Virginia, growing its roster of supporters from 3,500 to more than 100,000. And in November the people of Virginia look ready to reward his work: Approval looks likely for a ballot measure creating an independent commission to draw Virginia's legislative and congressional boundaries — joining 13 other states in taking such work away from politicians who would otherwise be able to pick their own voters. Cannon came to the work after winning a statewide redistricting contest in law school, although after graduating he spent a few years as a startup business consultant. His answers have been edited for clarity and length.
What's the tweet-length description of your organization?
@1VA2021 is a trans-partisan good govt org focused on ending gerrymandering in Virginia. We believe that voting districts belong to Virginians, not to any party or politician.
Describe your very first civic engagement.
When I was an undergraduate at William & Mary, there was a huge bond referendum on the 2002 ballot that would benefit higher ed in Virginia. A few friends and I saw that the only people advocating for it were college presidents and lobbyists — not any college students. We decided to change that and formed the first student-run political action committee in the country. It taught me there's a seat at the table for young voters if they do their policy homework, show up and honestly engage. Shortly thereafter we began working on textbook prices and the lack of competitive pay for our professors.
The Students PAC morphed into a wonderful advocacy organization called Virginia21 dedicated to giving young Virginians a chance to engage in state politics and policy-making.
What was your biggest professional triumph?
I hope it's ahead of me, because I am working every day to give us a chance at fair maps in Virginia in 2021. So far, the list is topped by getting the redistricting reform proposal through the General Assembly and on to the November ballot. It was the culmination in March of intense grassroots lobbying building up over several years. Approval of this reform would be historic for Virginia, for the South and for the growing movement for fair maps around the country. It will take redistricting out of the smoky backroom, put citizens with an equal say at the table, add transparency, and enshrine minority voter protections in our state constitution.
And your most disappointing setback?
There are so many little losses from which I've learned, but perhaps the most disappointing was in 2018. Like asking a thief to return the jewels, a federal court told legislators to redraw 11 state House districts it said were racially gerrymandered. Both parties came up with new maps that were still racial gerrymanders — but which served the electoral needs of Democrats and Republicans alike. It was clear to all of us watching that this wasn't how it should work, yet it happened anyway.
What was disappointing was that we had a chance to do it better. We had worked for years to persuade a number of legislators to commit to an open and transparent process with citizen engagement — but some of our best allies decided that wasn't worth doing at that point.
How does your identity influence the way you go about your work?
I'm a Democrat but view myself as a reformer first. There are so many things broken in our system: campaign finance laws, first-past-the-post voting, redistricting. I don't have answers for the big problems with our tax structure, health care system or climate — but I do know we'll never get them without honest, inclusive conversations in our representative bodies. Right now, the system is rigged to make these conversations unproductive, if not impossible.
What's the best advice you've ever been given?
College convocation speeches usually go in one ear and out the other of an 18-year-old the first week on campus, but the address when I arrived has stayed with me. Timothy Sullivan, our college president, contrasted President Kennedy's pro-government inaugural address in 1961 ("Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country") with President Reagan's anti-government inaugural address in 1981 ("Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem"). And he said our task as students in 2000 would be finding the synthesis between these two seemingly incompatible ideas. It's a charge I've taken to heart.
Create a new flavor for Ben & Jerry's.
Somehow, it would capture the spirit of Dave Daley's "UnRigged: How Americans are Battling Back to Save Democracy." He's a vegan, so it would need to respect that. There would have to be purple to represent bipartisanship. And nuts, because we're all a bit nuts to be in this reform space advocating for things most consider long-shots. After consulting an ice cream maker friend: vanilla oat milk ice cream swirled with a blueberry and fresh mint compote with a healthy dose of hazelnut cookie crumble.
What's your favorite political movie or TV show?
HBO's "Veep," because Julia Louis-Dreyfus and her castmates nail political satire so well that it's uncomfortable. I'm also, obviously, a "West Wing" fan, but that's nowhere near what real life is. Still, like "Veep," it gives those operating in a political sphere a lingua franca for our experiences.
What's the last thing you do on your phone at night?
I'm a big fan of Audible, so usually I'm listening to a book to wind down. The last one was about Churchill, Erik Larson's "The Splendid and the Vile." If I'm between books, though, I'll scroll Pinterest and think about all the gardening, cooking, exercising, and DIY hacks I could do.
What is your deepest, darkest secret?
I'm a grown, married man with two children. I cook meals for my family that are generally healthy and balanced. But if I'm alone for the evening, I'll often hit up the Taco Bell drive-thru for a Cheesy Gordita Crunch, a soft shell taco, a bean burrito — and those delicious cinnamon twists!
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.