Undaunted

Conan O’Brien goes back to Harvard.

I am a sucker for an optimistic, inspiring, unabashedly pro-intellectual, and funny college graduation speech delivered to an audience spanning everyone from Nobel Prize winners to grandparents bursting with pride. (There is something especially heartwarming about seeing celebrity speakers earnestly trying to show there is more to them than fame and fortune.)

Comedian Conan O’Brien’s recent Harvard commencement address was among the most insightful and moving (certainly the funniest) of the 2026 graduation speeches. His message: Don’t contribute to the narcissism epidemic.

Conan O’Brien delivers a commencement speech at Harvard. (Harvard University YouTube)

O’Brien, in his inimitable mix of gentle ribbing of others (chiding students for complaining about imperfections in their luxurious surroundings) and rueful self-evaluation (“I am aware that I am telling you to transcend your glories as I stand on this stage accepting a doctorate I didn’t really earn, well-dressed, like a 12^th-century pope”), ran a master class in remediating an outbreak of pathological narcissism. He told the crowd not to fall for the temptation of self-glorification:

I endeavor to always remind myself that I have done absolutely nothing alone. Walt Whitman wrote, “I contain multitudes.” Well, I contain a breakfast sandwich and an iced coffee from Tatte, but whatever I have achieved has been with the help of an infinitely packed clown car of multitudes.... Recognizing that my accomplishments are not just my own has given me much-needed balance throughout my life, and it really helps to spread the blame around when things go south.

He warned that social media algorithms aggravate one’s tendency to indulge in self-congratulation. After all, they are designed “to celebrate you and you alone by making you the protein-maxing hero of your own special journey.”

On a national level, unbounded arrogance fuels isolationism and contempt for the rest of the world. O’Brien wisecracked:

As you are aware, the current administration feels Harvard admits too many foreign students.… After all, what has any foreigner ever added to our American culture? With the possible exception of music, literature, art, cuisine, fashion, architecture, dance, scientific breakthroughs, and the core of our moral codes and ethical beliefs.

This is more than just a regrettable sociological phenomenon. That culture of self-absorbed malignant narcissism now envelopes our politics. Donald Trump’s entire second term is an exercise in translating his pathological narcissism into government policies (many blocked; all counterproductive). Virtually every decision and action is guided by insatiable hunger for self-enrichment, aimed at eliminating dissent and designed to fan internal division (pitting Americans against an unending list of made-up domestic enemies from Somalia migrants to antifa). It’s no secret that the White House is fostering the sort of environment fertile for the regime’s fascist agenda.

We wind up with government of, by, and for the paranoid and self-centered. “Our current leadership in Washington believes that empathy is a weakness and that our nation stands supreme and alone,” O’Brien noted. (Certainly “alone”; “supreme” in nothing but lost political support.)

O’Brien zeroed in on this horde of undeserving little men (mostly all are men) who insist their accomplishments are unmatched and that luck — whether in parentage, health, or other random factor — has nothing to do with their success. O’Brien calls the assumption “ignorant,” although malignantly narcissistic might be more accurate.

Attributing all success and worthy ideas to themselves while casting all dissent as traitorous is not a formula for effective governance, to put it mildly. A ruling class that is entirely convinced of its own flawlessness, that tends to blithely ignore evidence and that refuses to admit error and course correct, the Trump regime cuts itself off from expertise that might actually improve its performance.

If there is a silver lining, it is that the “only we know best” Trump regime inevitably commits humiliating self-owns on virtually all policy fronts — from a disastrous war and even more disastrous ceasefire deal to failed revenge prosecutions to inflation. (They may be trivial in comparison, but the draped sheet over the portion of the Kennedy Center building where his name once appeared and the scramble to dump bleach into in the reflecting pool to treat its algae outbreak seem to perfectly encapsulate the sort of bumbling we have come to expect.)

As MAGA elites fester in recrimination and turn on each other, they give time for democracy forces to peel off Republican voters, bulk up their effective organizing machine, build resiliency and enthusiasm in volunteer groups, and raise sufficient money to fund the fight to retain democratic and humane values. If Democrats prevail in November, thanks in part the incompetent narcissists’ self-inflicted political injuries, they can turn to planning sweeping democratic reform and repairing broken institutions.

But will that political response be enough to redirect America away from the dark MAGA era? That brings us back to O’Brien. His message boils down to a powerful argument that politics alone won’t cut it. Institutions need fixing, but institutions are just collections of people. We desperately need to focus on the narcissism outbreak and elevating virtuous, kind, caring, and modest people who can be stewards of self-government. Instead of government of, by, and for the self-centered, we need one that is of, by, and for the better angels of our nature.

For now, give credit to Conan O’Brien and other good-humored, undaunted, and unabashed defenders of kindness, learning, decency, social solidarity, and empathy. They remind us that if we increase the quotient of decent and empathetic people engaged in politics, we can increase the chances of preserving our pluralistic democracy.

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