The age of Hubris

Humility comes unbidden and unwelcome to those who are blind to its approach

We are truly a distracted society when we get to discussing how many dolls or pencils is too many for our children. Just this week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney sat in the Zelensky Seat at the White House, and was forced to endure the torture of being called an American appendage. My brother Jay and I discussed the best approach he could have taken to this. We arrived at Carney demanding how much gold President Trump could deliver for a piece of Canada, in the next hour. “How much for Winnipeg? Bring me a U-Haul filled with gold and you can have it.”

Obviously, the danger here is that Trump would do it—somehow he’d pull it off.

Photo: ChatGPT 4o

I asked ChatGPT what the value of the gold in that trailer would be: it said about $386 million. Then I asked it if that little trailer could carry those gold bars and it said no way, and offered to draw a truck that could do the job. For grins, I let it, but it’s more fun to leave the trailer that could not carry the gold, because that’s exactly Trump’s style. Plus, I think even Winnipeg is worth more than $386 million (the city’s annual budget in 2024 was $2.2 billion). Carney, being a central banker, would know better than to ask.

But that’s the point: Carney is a serious person, and Trump is not. Except, when challenged, the unserious person might try to do that very unserious thing, on a die roll or a coin flip. Either way, Trump would have no doubt he could pull it off if he desired. Realistically, I think they’d both have a laugh, because Trump knows when humor is in the wind, and even if it isn’t, Trump brings his own wind.

Trump’s tariff vision is not about money. He says it’s about money but it’s never been about money. It’s about having good allies that respect America. Trump said it over and over in the 1980s and 90s, anytime he was asked. Back then, it was Japan that was disrespectful, because they made cheap consumer goods that Americans liked to buy (that were actually quite high quality), and better automobiles than the Detroit Big Three. Now, it’s China, and Mexico, and Canada, with Japan and South Korea still on the list. In his first term, it was Europe and NATO.

Now, it’s universities and Hollywood. Eventually, everyone will make a deal with Trump. England is doing one. Harvard’s donors are pressuring the university to not fight their good fight, and to make a deal. But not all deals are equal, or good for America. It’s just as likely Trump would be the one taking a $386 million trailer filled with gold in exchange for something worth many times that in U.S. economic terms. But in his eyes, the pile of gold represents respect, a tribute of sorts, homage to America for our role as the be-all-of-all-things in the world.

Trump’s worldview is the textbook definition of “hubris.” The Greek word ὕβρις is pronounced “hybris” and means “wanton violence, insolence, outrage,” or the sin of presumption toward the gods. In modern usage, hubris is a grievous sin: the sin of pride.

Trump can demand deals on America’s behalf because he deals on the side of pride and entitlement. He is not the first president to deal this way, and you might even say hubris is an occupational hazard that most presidents have fallen to. You might even say it’s part of the job description. The president with the least hubris in the last 50 years was almost certainly Jimmy Carter, and Jimmy Carter’s greatest flaw might have been his lack of it, though equal to it might have been his micromanagement and personal belief that he alone should do everything (and the belief he could do everything).

A little hubris is a very American thing. After all, 250 years ago, it took a lot of pride in being American to fight the biggest colonial power in the world. The difference between America and Canada is that Canada didn’t rebel. And now their main beef is that we Americans hold it against them for their loyalty to the crown.

But the kind of hubris that has crept its way into our government, first after our military’s rebirth of pride following the First Gulf War, then again in reaction to 9/11, then in the technocratic messianic fervor of the Obama years, and culminating in the anti-Obama, the pinnacle of messianic hubris for the sake of hubris, Donald Trump, is both debilitating and dangerous.

That hubris tells us that China is taking advantage of us. But it’s very possible that China is going to overtake us. We know that’s their goal. China holds the second largest portion of U.S. debt, at $768 billion; only Japan, at $1.13 trillion, holds more. China wants the world to convert to its Yuan as the global reserve currency. China wants to control future markets in shipbuilding, transportation, technology, and natural resources like rare earths. China has a resource-rich country, a large military, and a giant manufacturing capability. China has a command economy that also recognizes capitalist supply and demand incentives.

Sure, China will probably make a deal. But whatever deal they make will be to blind us to the true danger. The danger of a technology breakthrough in AI (they’ve already done some damage there), quantum computing, or Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) could make things very difficult for the U.S. to play catch-up without making the “equivalent of war.”

In the 1950s, the Soviet Union was our adversary. Sputnik was a big surprise, and deflated the hubris of post-WWII America, that the Russians made it to space first. We spent a decade pushing the limits to catch up, while fighting a real war in Vietnam as a proxy against communism and the USSR. We suffered 50,000 dead (134 of whom were Canadians fighting for us—about 30,000 Canadian volunteers served in Vietnam in the U.S. military).

In the Iraq war, British forces suffered 179 dead, Italy had 33, Poland 23, Ukraine 18, and so on. In Afghanistan, the Brits lost another 457, Canada had 159 dead, France 90, Denmark 43, etc. These were killed in defense of American policy in an American war based on faulty—even false—intelligence propagated by Americans. These nations sent their young men to war to fight and die because they demonstrated friendship, and respect, for America in the most real way possible. China did not participate in the Iraq or Afghanistan wars as part of our coalition.

Trump’s version of hubris doesn’t recognize the bonds of friendship by the blood spilled under our flag. He recognizes trailers filled with gold, because that brand of hubris believes America is invincible if we would only get rid of the bad foreign influences and go back to the equivalent of war, like we had after Sputnik.

The problem is that the Soviet Union was never really able to capitalize on its space lead (the “missile gap” was a fabrication). The U.S. didn’t have a trade deficit with the USSR, or anyone in the Warsaw Pact, but we were ready to go to war with them. China holds a large amount of U.S. debt, has a tremendous effect on its geographic economic zone, which includes the largest holder of U.S. debt, and has technological advantages the USSR never had.

Our old-fashioned American hubris cannot help us against China. Trumpist displays of our power to get deals blind us to the reality of the danger China represents. Not only China, but also Russia, Iran, and North Korea. The Russian military has adapted to a new battlefield of drones, AI, and electronic warfare. Certainly, the U.S. has advanced capabilities, but we’ve not fought that kind of war, while Russia has, aided by the Iranians, North Koreans, and yes, the communist Chinese.

Trump’s hubris, despite the seeming gains from nations lining up to deal, is bringing us closer to a real war with China, a fighting war. And in such a war, Japan, South Korea, and now India, Pakistan, and Europe, have a lot more to lose. There is no guarantee they will line up with America to spill their own blood the way they did 20 years ago. Our hubris is pushing them away.

Hubris is a sin of pride. It blinds. It presumes. It tests the gods, or even the One True God. The age of hubris, of which Trump is the avatar, will lead to a fall. How large a fall is directly proportional to the level of our hubris.

We are dangerously blind and perilously proud. This is the petard on which we will be hoisted if we do not change our ways. Humility will come, unbidden and unwelcome, to those too blind to see its approach.

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