This summer VoteAmerica, which operates nationwide registration and turnout programs, hired seasoned Democratic operative Aisha McClendon as national constituencies director — focused on bolstering the nonprofit's work with churches and historically Black colleges and universities. She had previously been a regional constituency director for Mike Bloomberg's 2020 presidential campaign, after running national African American outreach for the Beto O'Rourke campaign. Before that she'd worked for a state legislator in her native Texas. Her answers have been edited for clarity and length.
What's the tweet-length description of your organization?
VoteAmerica works to ensure high turnout. We provide easy resources and tools to register to vote, sign up to vote by mail, request an absentee ballot, get election reminders, find a polling place and contact local election officials, etc.
Describe your very first civic engagement.
Registering people to vote on the campus of Dillard University, the historically Black college I attended in the 1990s.
What was your biggest professional triumph?
Spearheading the inaugural prayer service by the Black Caucus to open up the 2012 Democratic convention. It is always a struggle to get people to think outside of what they have ever done, and we had a lot of roadblocks — from buy-in from the party to getting sponsorships and finding speakers to volunteer their time. It was a huge task, and I had to call in a lot of favors, but we did it, and it was terrific. You know it's a good night when Rev. Jesse Jackson and Michael Eric Dyson crash your party!
And your most disappointing setback?
Struggling to deal with people acting against their self-interest. People are not often empowered to get out of their own way.
How does your identity influence the way you go about your work?
Who I am is my work, who I am is my profession, what I am is my calling. I will always be a Black woman. I take the task of ensuring that Black people, especially women, are always included in the picture of what America should like.
What's the best advice you've ever been given?
It was from the late civil rights and women's rights leader Dorothy Height, when she saw me trying to move to the far edge of a group posing for a photo, almost hiding myself. She said to me: Don't stand on the end; that's how women get cut out of history.
Create a new flavor for Ben & Jerry's.
Non-dairy Blackberry Cannoli. Who knows how it would taste, but those are two of my favorite things!
What's your favorite political movie or TV show?
"The West Wing," hands down. It reminds me of one of my first jobs, working in the executive office building next door to the White House during the Clinton administration.
What's the last thing you do on your phone at night?
Honestly, scroll through Facebook.
What is your deepest, darkest secret?
I may or may not have a "W" from an old school computer keyboard!
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.