John Opdycke is the Founder and President of Open Primaries, a national advocacy organization working to enact open and nonpartisan primary elections.
It’s tempting to finally see the selection of a new Speaker of the House and think “don’t worry, the ship has righted itself once again.” After all, the Democratic and Republican Parties governed the United States effectively for most of the 20th century. Not perfectly but effectively.
But what if those days of “governing” are gone?
Congressional Republicans--85% of whom face little-to-none general election competition--have lost interest in governing altogether. They provoke and disrupt but show outright disdain for doing the people’s business and finding creative solutions to the many issues facing our country.
The Congressional Democrats--similarly insulated from November contests--like passing legislation, which, unfortunately for all of us, is not the same as governing. They truly believe that they know what is best for people, so they pass laws and then scratch their heads and say “why don’t the American people appreciate how good Joe Biden has been to them?” They believe the country is the same as the highly organized interest groups that make up the (ever shrinking) remains of the New Deal Coalition that Ronald Reagan put on life support. The party is disconnected from much of the pain and chaos that ordinary Americans experience, and with the exception of Barack Obama, they’ve been running “anybody but (fill in the blank)” presidential campaigns for the past 30 years.
One party doesn’t believe in governing, the other doesn’t believe in the American people. Issues pertaining to our border, public safety, energy, foreign policy, pollution, debt and healthcare go unresolved because they function better as fundraising fuel. Trillions get spent on projects to help partisan interest groups, not the country. Debt mounts no matter who is in charge. While there is tremendous innovation, experimentation, dynamism and growth taking place at the grassroots, none of it touches Washington.
The failure of the national parties is obscured by the fact that many Republican and Democratic elected leaders at the local level are doing fine work governing cities and towns that are thriving--and inspiring the trust of the people who live there. Local government is respected, in part because the rules of local politics are mostly nonpartisan. But local resilience is the last gasp of a once effective national two party system, not evidence that we should stay the course.
The American people are responding to this state of affairs in three important ways. First, people are registering to vote as independents. In blue states and red, the fastest growing segment of the electorate is independent, no-party voters. Voters are creating distance between themselves and both parties. This trend is understudied and misunderstood, but it is happening.
Second, there is a growing appreciation that the rules of the political game are rigged to insulate both parties from the people so that when they fail, they pay no price. Advocates for a constitutional amendment to allow citizens to regulate money in politics, ranked choice voting and nonpartisan primaries, nonpartisan redistricting and election administration are knocking on doors in all 50 states, introducing legislation and promoting ballot measures. A growing coalition sees repealing closed primaries as the single most effective way to empower independent voters and create space for governing - but this movement is bigger than one policy. And it is growing.
And finally, multiple independent candidates/processes are testing the waters: Robert Kennedy, Jr., Cornel West, the Forward Party and No Labels. It’s early, but there are signs that these candidates and processes differ from traditional third party protest candidacies. Each is attempting to appeal to voters across the spectrum and talking about the need to upgrade our democratic process, not just elect new leaders. Each has the potential to tap into the pent up desire for a more diverse and dynamic political marketplace. Might one or more of these efforts survive the brutal attacks from Team Trump and Team Biden and gain traction? It’s possible. And if more than one takes off it will be interesting to see whether and how they can work together to create something truly developmental for the country.
Both parties, their positive capacities near exhaustion, are vested in preventing anything new from taking root. This is deeply destructive to the country at a time when challenges at home and abroad are mounting. The problem isn’t that Biden and Trump are too old - it’s that the institutions they lead are calcified and unresponsive. That’s why so many voters are declaring their independence. And it’s also why reforms that allow for new coalitions, new solutions, and new conversations are so essential.
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.