Kevin Frazier will join the Crump College of Law at St. Thomas University as an Assistant Professor starting this Fall. He currently is a clerk on the Montana Supreme Court.
A republican government rests on a critical assumption: that the public’s virtuous traits and, in particular, the virtues of elected officials will outweigh the “degree of depravity” in humankind. In other words, virtue is at the heart of a representative government--at least according to Federalist Paper No. 55.
The Founders did not shy away from discussing virtue and politics in the same breath. They assumed that the people would elect virtuous officials and, in the event that a dishonest, immoral, or corrupt official took office, political leaders in the Revolutionary Era developed checks to ease the removal of such officials. Pennsylvanians and Vermonters, for example, created Councils of Censors that assessed whether the legislative and executive branches of government performed their duty as guardians of the people. Violations of such duties could result in censure and impeachment.
At some point the public stopped assuming politicians possessed any more virtue than everyone else. People today perceive politics as a realm where mudslinging goes further than deliberating, where the perfectibility of humankind loses out to the possibility of greater power in the hands of fewer individuals, and where those most willing to sacrifice their morals will have the easiest time of getting ahead. Two-thirds of Americans say that the statement "most politicians are corrupt" describes the U.S. well, according to a 2020 Pew Research Center poll. The perception of corruption has had a corrosive effect on our democracy.
The absence of virtue in the political arena is a major problem. The devolution of politics into a WWE wrestling match makes it easier for opponents of any law to question the intentions of the law’s proponents and, therefore, the legitimacy of the law and our system of government as a whole. Consider that the same 2020 Pew poll that revealed the public’s concerns with corruption also exposed the public’s increased willingness to drastically reform our system of government. More than two-thirds of Americans agreed that the U.S. political system required "major" changes and a sizable group—about a fifth—asserted that our political system should undergo a complete reformation.
Thankfully, the Council of Censors of the past provide the present with a model for how to provide a check on corrupt politicians. The Pennsylvania Council of Censors included 24 citizens who had been elected from districts around the state. Councilors served single, seven year terms. As mentioned, the Council could censure public officials and order impeachments, in addition to possessing the authority to recommend the repeal of legislation, and if required, call for a Constitutional convention.
A modern improvement of this Council would eliminate the election of Councilors and instead rely on a stratified random sample to select a representative body of the public to evaluate the behavior of their officials. Selection by a sort of lottery process would reduce the odds of partisan bias influencing Council decisions and provide the Council with more legitimacy on the basis of having a wide range of views and backgrounds on the Council. Whether a modern Council should have the same powers as those in Pennsylvania and Vermont is a question for another article. At a minimum, the Council should evaluate if elected officials veer too far from the public’s perception of virtue.
Opposition to morality mixing with governance is understandable. After all, who gets to choose which morals serve as the standard for assessing what qualifies as “good” political behavior? Some may understandably fear that a focus on refining the character of citizens and improving their virtue will open the door to undue influence by religious thinking. Others may argue that a focus on morals and virtue will further pull the country into culture wars that limit our ability to wage battle on more pressing fronts such as income inequality, climate change, and distrust in democratic institutions. This is another reason why a random sample of everyday citizens is the best approach - diverse Councilors would encapsulate the values and morals of the entire community.
Virtue has a place in our politics. Ethical leadership should not be hard to come by in D.C. nor in any state capitol. The modern adoption of Councils of Censors could revive an assumption of the past: that politics can and will bring out the best in our community.
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.