Molineaux is the co-founder and executive director of Bridge Alliance, a coalition of more than 90 civic reform groups. (Disclosure: The Bridge Alliance Education Fund is a funder of The Fulcrum.)
This is the third in a series of opinion pieces we are publishing during Women's History Month to recognize the contributions of women to the democracy reform movement.
Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to run for president in 1872, with Frederick Douglass as her running mate. While disparaged and trivialized at the time, she was relentless in pursuing equal rights and labor reforms. Many advances made in the early 20th century can be traced back to Woodhull's "radical ideas" from the 19th century.
Our lesson: Never underestimate the ability of women to transform our culture. One of the greatest strengths of women is transmuting their experience into something for the good of our larger human family.
There are many women who inspire with their courage, tenacity and intelligence. Here are four of them.
As she says in the preface of her book, "Independents Rising," politics is in Salit's blood. Her career as an independent began before it was cool in the 1970s. In fact, it was not talked about in polite company, but she did anyway. She has campaigned for independent candidates and fought for ballot access, voting rights and redistricting in more places than people can imagine. And now with 42 percent of registered voters not affiliated with a party, Salit leads Independent Voting with strategic vision and tactical street smarts that is bringing about a better America where we are all authentically empowered to be citizens, regardless of our party or lack of one.
Zaneeta Daver
Now the COO of Civic Nation, Daver is an educator, systems analyst and thinker with a side of curriculum development. In other words, she likes to be in the background, contributing with her entrepreneurial style and whole-human approach. Her career spans higher education and consulting, thinking about how we can become the multicultural society we claim to be. Daver has been a thinking partner in creating our shared future, influencing the work of Bridge Alliance (and therefore 100 organizations) in an understated or subtle way. Daver is an example of a powerful woman who doesn't need the spotlight to make a difference.
Gehl was CEO of her family's Gehl Foods Inc. when she became concerned about the state of our country and used her business expertise to analyze what was wrong and how our politics could be better. This led to her researching and writing the 2017 report"Why Competition in the Politics Industry is Failing America" with Michael Porter. This historic look at politics through a business lens is the undergirding to many of the democratic reforms being advanced today — including single-ballot, top-five primaries with ranked-choice voting general elections. Her insight into politics as an industry with unhealthy competition is a new way of viewing our system with a plan to transform it.
Mary Stanley
Stanley was a mentor and often gruff friend to many women who ran for office for 47 years. She was a relentless supporter and helped get dozens of women elected. In 1971, she participated as a Republican in the formation of National Women's Political Caucus along with Gloria Steinheim, Bella Abzug and others. She changed parties after the GOP failed to support ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and removed reproductive rights from its platform, two issues she saw as essential for women's equality. Stanley was in constant contact with her elected representatives, building a relationship with each, one postcard, letter, phone call and visit at a time. She ran fundraisers, offered endorsements and was relentless in her advocacy for more women in elected office. The many she met selling buttons and bumper stickers at political events did not know she donated all profits to female candidates. She held fundraisers for Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein (who sent her birthday presents each year) and Karen Humphrey, the first female mayor of Fresno, Calif. Many women in office today owe their start to Stanley. She would be so proud of them.
What is the legacy we would leave for our descendants? Let's map the path and start. Together and with perseverance, we can create the future our children and grandchildren will inherit and write about.
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.