In the latest move to make mail balloting more appealing in a swing state, Pennsylvania has decided to pay for the return postage on all absentee ballots in the fall election.
The announcement by Democratic Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar will add the nation's sixth biggest state, if only this year, to the roster of 17 others that routinely foot the bill for mailing back a remote voting envelope. These include other presidential battlegrounds led by Wisconsin and Arizona.
The decision also makes Pennsylvania the 25th state where normal laws or regulations have been relaxed, either proactively or because of a lawsuit, to make casting a ballot easier and safer in November in light of the coronavirus. On that list, just one other state, reliably red South Carolina, has also decided to pay for postage on mailed ballots — a move that will eliminate a minor logistical hassle for everyone along with a financial burden for the very poor.
An unprecedented share of the presidential vote looks to come through the mail this fall — perhaps more than half, up from a quarter last time, an expected wave that's presenting states with logistical problems culminating in the challenge of opening and tabulating so many envelopes on election night.
Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf plans to pay for the postage with some of the state's share of federal emergency coronavirus aid.
"It's our job as public servants to make the voting process as seamless as possible for our citizens," said David Pedri, the county manager in Wilkes Barre. "This is the right move because it makes it even easier for all Pennsylvanians to make sure their voices are heard."
Friday's announcement comes as the state intensifies a legal battle with President Trump's re-election campaign over expanding vote-by-mail rules. The campaign filed its first lawsuit last month, asking a federal judge to restrict mail-in voting, and Democrats responded with a lawsuit of their own in state court seeking to loosen those same rules.
Both suits are seeking to address ballot drop boxes, poll watcher eligibility and the use of ballot secrecy envelopes for mail-in ballots.
This is the first year Pennsylvanians may vote absentee without providing a specific excuse, the centerpiece of an extensive rewrite of election law enacted with bipartisan support in Harrisburg last fall. The change resulted in more than 1.8 million voters requesting a remote ballot for the state's June 2 primary, with six out of seven of those people returning them in time.
The numbers suggest the share of votes cast by mail statewide in November may see an exponential increase compared to 2016, when it was just 5 percent.
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.