This is the sixth installment in our ongoing Q&A series on reform in 2021.
As Democrats take power in Washington, if only tenuously, many democracy reform groups see a potential path toward making the American political system work better. In this installment, Amber McReynolds, CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute, answers our questions about 2020 accomplishments and plans for the year ahead. Her organization is a leading proponent of voting of mail and had been advocated such systems prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. McReynolds' responses have been edited for clarity and length.
First, let's briefly recap 2020. What was your biggest triumph last year?
First and foremost, we really became a go-to resource for election officials and policymakers alike. Basically doubling the number of states and jurisdictions, including Washington, D.C., that mailed a ballot to every elector in the general election was a massive deal. The broad expansion and adoption of vote-at-home options for all voters across the country definitely stands out as the biggest triumph, because more people had the opportunity to vote by mail this year. And then they used it. It was the most widely used method of voting. So we accomplished a very big goal in the middle of a pandemic.
And your biggest setback?
One of the biggest challenges is the disinformation and deliberate attack on this method of voting and the "big lie." I feel like all year it was one thing after another. It's almost like they were throwing things at the wall to see what stuck, and voting by mail was part of that. There's just an overall impact that is detrimental to voters and their confidence in the election, and it certainly enticed many of the very destructive things that happened in 2020 and even in 2021, especially on Jan. 6. So while voting by mail had a big triumph, I would say the biggest challenge is the disinformation and being part of this big lie.
What is one learning experience you took from 2020?
Running a national nonprofit and having team members in lots of different states has been a learning experience. As a leader, it's been hard to adjust the model and the platform and to hire people that you've never in person met. It's a weird dynamic. Then the other aspect is more personal. I'm a single mom with two small kids, and when the pandemic started and they were home, I was trying to balance them being on Zoom calls for school and helping them, while working 18-hour days.
The other side of the personal piece is the threats that started to culminate online. I had death threats. I had to hire security guards outside my house. After the election, I was like, "OK, we're almost done." Then everything started with the big lie, which our vote by mail was very much wrapped into, and I was personally being attacked. It was a very stressful situation.
Now let's look ahead. What issues will your organization prioritize in 2021?
We are working with a set of states that we've divided into three tiers. And we're again reupping a lot of our policy work on expanding vote at home options to make some of the temporary changes that were passed in 2020 permanent. Many of the bills currently filed in state legislatures about vote by mail are actually expansions of the options or technical improvements. Some of the bills are trying to roll back voting by mail, and we're going to do our best to fight that stuff off. We're also working at the national level. We've been involved in these conversations for a few years. We'll definitely be providing input on the potential for federal legislation.
Our uniqueness as an organization is that we combine policy with implementation. So not only are we going to give you advice on procedures, but we can also help state and local election officials actually think about the best structures for implementing these changes. That's really what we're going to be doing, expanding on what we did in 2020. Right now the legislative sessions are really in high gear in a lot of states and so that is very intense at the moment. Some of them end in the spring and then we'll move into implementation. It's really a continuation and growth of our organization. And certainly regarding the spread of disinformation, we are going to continue to help educate lawmakers and the public about the real facts around vote by mail.
How will Democratic control of the federal government change the ways you work toward your goals?
With HR 1, we provided a lot of feedback when it was first filed two years ago, and now it includes some of the improvements we have suggested, so we're going to continue working on that. But there needs to be bipartisan support. I truly believe that election policy and legislation is better when there is bipartisan support, especially at the federal level, like with the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act. So we're really going to think strategically about the baseline reforms where there could be bipartisan agreement. We're going to try to fill the leadership void in terms of recommendations, and we will work with anyone who wants to work on voter-centric and pro-voter policies.
What do you think will be your biggest challenge moving forward? And how do you plan to tackle it?
I think education will be a main focus moving forward given the big lie. It's going to take a lot of time and effort to educate people on what's real and what's not, and how we can improve versus roll back. And it's also a matter of remaining a priority. There are some very ambitious priorities that the new administration wants to pursue at the federal level, so I think it's going to be a challenge to keep good election reforms moving given the many challenges our country has before it. Keeping focused and keeping the ball moving is really important. It's kind of crazy, but there's a very short window between now and 2022. So to make good election reforms and move things forward, now is the time to convince people to prioritize this issue.
Finish the sentence. In two years, American democracy will ...
be stronger.
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.