We asked for your take on cross-party voting – when do you vote party line? And when might you mix your vote? Our take is that cross-party voting is a signal that more and more Americans are putting country before party. And yet, some people believe loyalty to their political party is the best solution – and the patriotic one.
Here’s what you shared with us. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
I voted Republican in every presidential election until 2016. My conscience wouldn’t let me vote for Donald Trump and I wasn’t crazy about Hillary Clinton, so I voted third party, putting country over party. During the Trump years, seeing the horrific decline of the Republican Party, I became an independent. I voted for Biden in 2020 and I am happy I did. - RH Shallenberg
I used to vote along party lines. It's how I was raised. However, I now always put country before party. Iit's important to look at the issues and individuals independent of party. - Mark Pommerville
Every time I vote. My country, my state, my city and county come first. I choose the best qualified candidate – Hillary Clinton, for example. The party usually has been irrelevant. Of course in 2020 and 2022, and perhaps the foreseeable future, it is dangerous to democracy (it's capitulation to authoritarianism) to allow any Republican to win. Their party is promoting Donald Trump's Big Lie, using their power to appoint anti-democracy judges, pushing laws that endanger the lives as well as the freedom of women with difficult reproductive situations. So in this case the party is terribly relevant. Supporting my country means rejecting the Republican Party. -Janet Basu
I take voting seriously. I have been voting for 50-plus years. I have rarely voted for an incumbent, mainly because I do not see them doing anything meaningful for the people (schmucks like me, the 99 percent). So, to answer your question, I have always put the “99 percent” over all politics. Unfortunately our “leaders” don’t. They put themselves above all. -Mike Dugdell
I've always put country over party. For me, party is only relevant because most local elections and all the way up to the level of senator or president are decided in the primaries in my state, as in far too many other parts of our country. I'm delighted that No Labels is producing a moderate alternative, as I feel far too many loyal Americans have been duped by parties and media to either join the extremists or leave the parties, and thus often waste their votes. -Mike O.
I am fundamentally an independent. I like to consider myself a Weld Republican. However, with the possible exception of Mitt Romney. I have voted for Democrats. My intention is to put the country first. I simply believe in fiscal responsibility. However, I believe in being socially responsible as well. -Craig Lindell
I have voted “the other side” many times in my life, but not once in this century. I did not feel vilified until then. The party wasn’t lockstep until then. I vote for, not against, but since that time I have not found myself for anything that party seemed to almost unanimously endorse. And as time goes by, that party is less for anything and totally against anything not proposed by them. I feel abandoned by half the politicians in the country. -Jeanene Louden
I'm sorry to say that since 2020 I will no longer consider any GOP candidate since the GOP no longer permits divergence within its ranks. This does not mean that I am satisfied with the Democrats either. They have also been drifting toward financial corruption for some time. At this point I think that ranke- choice voting has the best chance for salvaging any real democracy in the USA. -Bill Carr
I have always voted as an independent. That changed about 10 years ago when I noticed a need to vote in early primaries and retain Democratic leaders in our area. Then in 2016, I chose to vote for a third party because I didn't want Trump or Clinton to have my vote. I have had people tell me that my voting for a third party hurts but in the incident with Clinton, I believe the Electoral College screwed her. -Pamela Haddock
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is one of the founding documents of the United Nations. Sadly, the United States has shown hypocrisy in failing to practice what it has preached to the rest of the world for a significant part of the 20th century. So, yes, I have voted for third parties since I want real political parties instead of the sham elections and parties presented in the United States. It was interesting to watch how African leaders in nations with one-party systems would react to the U.S. criticism of their systems. But Julius Nyerere was correct when he said: “The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.” -Micheal Bannerman
I have voted on both sides of the aisle from state representative races down to local races. I choose based on character and on issues that candidates represent in alignment with my personal views. I have always voted Democratic for the House, Senate, and president (50 years). My most recent campaign contributions were to Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, and in both cases I put country over party (we don’t agree on many cultural issues, but both have good character and share respect for democracy and the law – a scarce and valuable combination that should be rewarded). - George Felt
Of course I've voted for "the other side" Because I had to register as something, I chose Republican and have seldom if ever voted straight-ticket. And I certainly won't this November. Only a person incapable of thinking for themselves would do that in my opinion. An a** is an a** and both the Democrats and Republicans have an abundance. -Lorine Nolte
Until about five years ago, I could be counted on to vote reliably for candidates from one party. It was easier to assume that the party was doing a good job vetting candidates than to do the work myself. As I became involved in Mormon Women for Ethical Government, I came to see that sort of straight party voting as problematic and have since left my party and taken on the identity of a principled voter. Like so many other MWEG members, it has been enormously freeing to stop letting a political party take away my power by making my choices for me. I am much better informed about the issues, I am very strategic about which candidates I vote for, and I regularly vote for candidates from both major parties. I can’t imagine going back to relying on partisan interests to pick my candidates for me. -Emma Petty Addams
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.