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In January, the New York Times asked President 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, Adolph 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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Ideas expressed in the piece
The article argues that Donald Trump’s declaration that only “my own morality, my own mind” can limit his global power embodies the classical Greek notion of hubris, in which a mortal presumes godlike authority and rejects any higher law or constraint.
It contends that Trump’s self-image parallels figures in “The Odyssey,” where hubris is defined as insolent acts that offend the gods by claiming powers reserved for them, and is contrasted with xenia, the obligation to respect others and follow divine rules.
The column emphasizes that Trump’s boasts about ending the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours and exercising near-total control over global events have been disproven by reality, illustrating how hubris collides with practical limits on military, economic and diplomatic power.
It notes that Trump’s behavior on tariffs and China — repeatedly backing away from promised hard lines, rescinding some tariffs, and permitting strategic chip sales — reveals that market pressures and foreign leverage constrain him far more than his “own morality.”
The piece highlights Trump’s willingness to embrace pseudo-historical praise, such as a document by “Presidential Historian David King” claiming Trump is “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet,” and places him alongside figures like Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin whose belief in their own omnipotence was central to their eventual downfall.
It maintains that Iran, a middling power, now functions as Trump’s nemesis: its ability to absorb military punishment while exerting control over the Strait of Hormuz shows that geopolitical realities, oil prices, allied anger and domestic opinion limit his actions more effectively than law or expert advice.
The article stresses that Trump’s rhetoric about destroying Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate demonstrates that his moral restraints are weak, yet Iran’s tolerance for pain and refusal to validate his claims of victory leave him in a Sisyphean struggle that undercuts his “tired of winning” narrative.
Finally, the column suggests that Trump’s predicament resembles a modern Greek tragedy, invoking Sophocles’ warning that Zeus “abhors the boasts of a proud tongue” to argue that Trump’s hubris invites inevitable correction from forces greater than his will.
Different views on the topic
In contrast, some scholars of Greek culture emphasize that ancient hubris was not just arrogance or self-regard but a legal term for violent, degrading abuse of others, especially acts that harmed the community; they argue that modern usage risks flattening the concept into mere boastfulness and may overstate parallels between Trump’s rhetoric and classical crimes against the polis.[3][9]
Additionally, educational analyses of Greek myth stress that hubris originally referred to presuming one could overturn fate or the divine order, and only later came to mean excessive pride in a general sense; this perspective suggests that equating Trump’s political bravado with the fatal flaws of mythic heroes like Oedipus or Icarus oversimplifies both the ancient stories and the structural constraints of contemporary politics.[8][9]
Some commentators instead frame Trump through other mythological lenses, such as the Icarus–Daedalus dynamic, arguing that his presidency is surrounded by “Icaruses” — advisers and allies whose own excesses bring them down — while Trump continues to navigate between risk and restraint, implying a more complex pattern than an inevitable personal downfall solely driven by hubris.[2]
A different strand of analysis portrays Trump less as a tragic figure undone by pride and more as a Dionysian presence in democratic politics: a rule-breaking, emotionally charged leader who thrives on chaos, repeatedly “dies and is reborn” politically, and taps into the frustrations of discontented voters, thereby complicating the idea that his apparent hubris simply leads to limits and failure.[7]
Furthermore, some writers argue that contemporary political narcissism and overconfidence are widespread phenomena rooted in media, social networks and polarized democracies, and that Trump’s behavior reflects broader systemic incentives rather than uniquely godlike pretensions; in this view, invoking Greek tragedy may illuminate patterns of excess but risks personalizing what is, in part, a structural problem of modern governance.[1][6]
Finally, other commentaries note that while Greek myths warn against pride before a fall, nemesis in modern politics often comes from voters, institutions and markets rather than divine punishment, suggesting that Trump’s setbacks and resilience should be assessed in terms of accountability and democratic checks rather than destiny-driven tragedy.[4][5][9]
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