The start of September marks a grim new chapter for the Federal Election Commission.
With Vice Chairman Matthew Petersen departing at the end of last month, the commission no longer has the minimum number of members required to carry out most of the FEC's basic responsibilities as the watchdog and regulator of federal campaign finance activity.
There are six seats on the commission, but two of them have been vacant since soon after President Trump took office. With Peterson's resignation, after 11 years on the job, the commission has lost its four-person quorum — and also the potential for the four votes necessary to take even the most anodyne, bipartisan action.
Without a quorum, the FEC cannot:
- Hold its regular public meetings.
- Determine violations of campaign finance laws and subsequently penalize or fine candidates or political committees.
- Conduct its routine audits of presidential candidate fundraising and spending.
- Issue advisory opinions when politicians or political action committees ask about the boundaries of their behavior.
- Open new investigations or rule on already existing ones.
- Vote on new rulings.
Although the FEC is stalled on these core functions, it has not completely shut down. It can still:
- Receive complaints on infractions and ruling recommendations from the general counsel.
- Accept contribution and spending reports from political committees.
- Continue access to and upkeep of campaign finance data through the FEC's website.
- Assist political committees, the press and the public with campaign finance-related questions.
The FEC will continue in this dysfunctional state until Trump nominates and the Senate confirms at least one new commissioner.
That means the next several crucial months in the 2020 campaign — when the Democratic presidential field will get winnowed and many of the bellwether Senate and House contests will get started — will occur without the candidates or outside groups getting any money-in-politics oversight.
Absent an unanticipated breakthrough, the entire 2020 election could be left vulnerable to campaign finance malefactors, unchecked by even a subdued FEC. (Such was the case for most of 2008, the last time the agency lacked a quorum.)
The president has only chosen one person — Trey Trainor, a Republican and Trump-supporting Texas attorney — but the Republican-majority Senate has done nothing to advance that nomination since it was sent to the Capitol two years ago.
Historically, presidents have typically submitted pairs of candidates, one from each party, for the Senate's consideration. The FEC may not have more than three commissioners of the same party — a requirement that, while designed to make sure the agency would not become a venue for blatant partisan punishment, has instead resulted in almost total gridlock even when all the seats are filled.
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.