L.F. Payne, a Democrat, represented Virginia’s 5 th Congressional District from 1988-1997. He currently serves as President of the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress (FMC).
Barbara Comstock, a Republican, represented Virginia’s 10 th Congressional District from 2015-2019 and currently serves as President-Elect of FMC.
Since its inception in 1974, the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress (FMC)’s Distinguished Service Award has traditionally been given to a current or former Member of Congress, who has made extraordinary contributions to the United States Congress, public service, or representative democracy. Previous recipients include President Gerald Ford, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, Senator Sam Nunn, and Congresswoman Gabby Giffords to name a few of our incredibly deserving past honorees. However, along with our colleagues, we decided to break FMC’s long-running tradition and dedicate our 2023 Distinguished Service Award to the people of Ukraine during our annual membership meeting last month.
Over the past year and a half, the people of Ukraine have shown the world how precious representative democracy is and why it is worth fighting for. For decades, we in the United States and our allied nations around the world, in Europe in particular, have enjoyed the freedoms that our representative democracies have produced for us and that our brave service members have defended overseas.
However, since declaring independence in 1991, freedom, democracy, and self-governance have been far from certain for the people of Ukraine. They took to the streets to protest an undemocratic presidential election in 2004, have dealt with Russia’s invasion and occupation of the Donbas region and Crimea since 2014, and now are fighting off Russia’s attempt to take even more land and overthrow their democratically elected government.
Despite the numerous internal and external threats that they have faced as a country within their short 31 years, the Ukrainian people have never lost their dream of living in a free and democratic Ukraine. Their resolve should truly serve as an inspiration for us all.
Today, many of our authoritarian adversaries constantly opine that democracy does not work and is an outdated model but the people of Ukraine and their unrelenting fight for freedom prove them wrong. From Lviv to Kharkiv, from the capital of Kiev to the villages in the Donbas, the Ukrainian people are not only fighting for their democracy, but they are also making the case for why representative democracy is the strongest, most enduring, and just system of government this world has ever seen.
They have reinvigorated the concept and promise of representative democracy on the world stage and for this reason, we along with our colleagues believe they are incredibly deserving of our 2023 Distinguished Service Award.
We were honored to be joined by Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova at our annual meeting, who graciously accepted the award on behalf of the Ukrainian people. In her speech, she spoke of the harrowing conditions they are facing both on the battlefield and in every aspect of daily life, Ukraine’s deep appreciation of the United States military and humanitarian support, and our shared values that their brave men and women are fighting for.
The award she accepted on behalf of the tens of millions of Ukrainians is made out of the original marble from the steps leading to the U.S. Capitol building. Steps that were traveled by those who played integral roles in the construction and fortification of our own democracy. Its symbolism is meant to underscore the value of the Ukrainian people’s contribution to representative democracy worldwide.
We were honored to recognize the sacrifices of the people of Ukraine in this way, and to use the broad bipartisan voice of our association to show support for the Ukrainian people.
We hope and pray for the safety of the people of Ukraine and will keep them in our hearts as they continue to fight for their freedom and inspire the rest of the free world.
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.