The promise of technology, like almost everything this year, has become more polarized.
Still, there's reason to be hopeful. Working in the technology industry, I certainly have my biases. The outsized impact of technology on the way isolated or distant communities can interact with the world colors my every view.
It allows individuals globally to foster real-time connections — the true potential of which we've seen, as never before, in the six months since the coronavirus compelled most business and personal communication to become remote. And it empowers disabled individuals to live more independent and full lives. I'm currently working on self-driving cars, and I'm excited about how the technology will help expand the mobility of the elderly and visually impaired.
To me, the unifying thread of the adoption of technology is access: facilitating activities and engagement that were previously impossible.
The explosion of technology-driven options driven by the pandemic promises to level the playing field for many types of individuals, and we are just starting to tap its potential.
With so many of us relying on technology today to connect with our families, conduct touchless financial transactions and educate our children, it's surprising there is so little faith in technology when it comes to elections.
I understand the apprehension. But we have to acknowledge our great democracy has significant blind spots and gaps — and many voters have limited access to their ballots. First on the list are a group of voters we cannot afford to leave voiceless: those risking their lives around the world to protect our freedom and our great democracy.
More than 200,000 troops are stationed overseas across four continents, serving Americans and our interests. All the arguments against integrating technology into our election don't seem to take into proper account this reality: The options they currently have for exercising the franchise — using the mail, a fax machine or their email — are all vulnerable to the risks that have been solely ascribed to new, online technology. Election officials are able to identify who submitted a ballot, and that leaves our people in uniform without a private ballot or a secure way to anonymously vote.
Traditionally, we rely on our overseas Americans' ability to cast ballots by mail. But in the middle of a pandemic, where mail was not being delivered to the United States from more than 70 countries as of the end of July, filling out a ballot may be more a symbolic gesture than something that actually affects the races for president, Congress and the statehouses.
It's little wonder that, even with only the obstacles in place before the Covid-19 outbreak, only 7 percent of our eligible military and overseas voters vote. And that compares to roughly 60 percent turnout of eligible voters back home. When so many issues on the ballot can have an outsized impact on their lives, this number is representative of a failure.
There's resistance — from cybersecurity researchers and vote-by-mail advocates — to using new technology that allows private, secure access to elections for our overseas military and citizens, arguing that the risks of hacking or failure are too high. When you view the current ways that they are voting (or, in the case of international mail, not voting) can we really argue that the security and privacy around the status quo is any better?
There's evidence that these technologies work, are secure and are welcomed by the communities that they serve. West Virginia is a prime example. Two years ago it pioneered platforms that allow their men and women overseas to vote on their mobile phones. Another is Utah, a vote-by-mail state, that uses app-based voting for military personnel and people with disabilities.
I'm not advocating for the rapid adoption of this new technology to the general public. This is too critical for that. What I'm advocating for is to implement advanced, up-to-date technologies used in most recent pilots to provide markedly better options to vote than by email or fax. We are already using smartphone technology, in most of our critical work including national security.
Now is the time to deploy advanced technology to identify, and then close any gaps, for groups of people abroad who qualify under federal law to return ballots through email and fax.
Such a step is how we will build a stronger electoral system that ensures access to voting for those who need it the most. This is how technology marches forward for social good. With purpose and strategy, with careful tests and ongoing experimentation, followed by a thoughtful implementation for the most disenfranchised.
Not doing so shuts out people who need a voice at the ballot booth, especially this year.
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.