Arkansas is positioned to become the next state to tighten rules around voting and election procedures.
This week, the Republican-majority Legislature approved two measures that would implement new restrictions on absentee voting and activities near polling places. Both bills now head to GOP Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who is expected to sign them.
This continues a nationwide trend of Republican lawmakers pushing hundreds of restrictive voting bills in response to false claims of fraud in the 2020 elections. At the same time, Democratic legislators have been advocating for easing access to the ballot box.
One of the bills recently approved by the Arkansas Legislature would amend the absentee ballot process in the state. County clerks and other designated election officials would be barred from sending absentee ballot applications to voters who had not requested them. But election officials could display a mail voting application form online.
Arkansas is one of 15 states that currently requires an excuse to vote by mail.
The bill would also deny an absentee ballot to any voter if their signature on the application does not match the signature on the voter registration form. Another provision of the bill would make the possession of more than four absentee ballots by one person "a rebuttable presumption of intent to defraud." Democrats argue the practice of collecting ballots helps the elderly and those who live far from mail service or ballot boxes.
Democrats pushed back against the signature matching rule, raising concerns that it would disproportionately impact elderly and disabled voters. But Republicans maintained it would prevent voter fraud — of which there was scant evidence in last year's election.
On Tuesday, the state Senate voted 27-8, along party lines, to approve this legislation, which was passed by the state House earlier this month.
The other bill would prevent someone from being within 100 feet of the entrance to a polling site while voting is taking place, unless they are entering or leaving the building "for lawful purposes." Arkansas's current laws already ban electioneering and other political activity outside polling places.
Proponents of the bill said it is intended to stop groups from handing out water, food or other items to voters in line outside polling places. A similar prohibition recently passed in Georgia has been decried by voting rights advocates.
Before the Arkansas House voted 74-23, also on Tuesday, to send this bill to the governor, Republican lawmakers defended the legislation by saying it would protect voters and prevent people from congregating outside polling locations.
But Democrats argued it went beyond addressing electioneering and could deter voters from coming to the polls.
"I want you to think very carefully about what our state looks like when we pass legislation that creates barriers, however small, to keep people from the polls in whatever way," said Democratic state Rep. Vivian Flowers.
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.