The great Roman statesman and philosopher Seneca once praised men who turned their “misfortunes into badges of honor” and thus won popular admiration. That certainly describes the popularity and success of Donald Trump.
Trump was not crushed or defeated by the endless barrage of impeachments, lawsuits, indictments, smear campaigns, and egregiously biased investigations. Not even a bullet to the head intimidated him. He defied his enemies and thus won the admiration and confidence of the American people, who voted him back into office in the 2024 election. Now Trump is holding his corrupt enemies accountable without caring a snap of his fingers what the media says about it. It’s a beautiful thing to witness.
The great Lucius Annaeus Seneca wrote to his mother in the first century, “If virtue has once hardened your mind, it renders it impervious to blows from any quarter.” He then went on to explain how a great man deals with obstacles and disasters.
“No one is despised by others unless he be previously despised by himself: a groveling and abject mind may fall an easy prey to such contempt,” Seneca wrote, “but he who stands up against the most cruel misfortunes, and overcomes those evils by which others would have been crushed—such a man, I say, turns his misfortunes into badges of honor, because we are so constituted as to admire nothing so much as a man who bears adversity bravely.”
All men, from every walk of life and in every situation, tend to look for a leader. That is perfectly natural in us. And when we discover a man who is fearless and perseverant in the face of the greatest evils, we will follow him. The leader might have many personal vices or past failures, but if he wears his misfortunes as badges of honor and bears adversity bravely, he can still accomplish great things with the support of loyal followers.
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There are already numerous wins to celebrate within the first month of the second Trump presidency, but one rather lighthearted moment from the Oval Office captures both the defiant courage and the infectious humor that brought Trump through so many political battles and multiple assassination attempts.
Trump called all to witness his suspension of the security clearances of the law firm employees who worked with disgraced Special Counsel Jack Smith on bogus charges against him. The president called it “The Deranged Jack Smith Signing,” slamming “the weaponization of our [justice] system by law firms … nobody knows about it more than me.” And, after signing the order, he cut off a journalist trying to change the subject, saying he wanted “to savor this one,” and casually flipped his pen into the little mob of journalists, suggesting, “Why don’t you send it to Jack Smith?”
JUST IN: Trump signs EO stripping security clearances from the law firm that worked with former special counsel Jack Smith
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) February 25, 2025
POTUS dubs his action "The Deranged Jack Smith Signing"
Tosses the pen to a bystander, saying, "Why don't you send it to Jack" pic.twitter.com/O4skIIhGsy
And that’s why we love Trump. We love him for jumping up with blood streaming down his face to shout, “Fight, fight, fight!” We love him for surviving the unprecedented lawfare and being able to joke about it as he brings accountability to the corrupt weaponizers, the liars who have destroyed the careers of many other honorable politicians, including Mark Robinson and former Rep. Rick Renzi. Trump trolls the leftists and defies the tyrants as we have all longed to do many a time. He gives us a seat at the table again after years of politicians spending our money against our wishes and enacting disastrous laws under which we suffered.
Trump stood against the most cruel misfortunes and overcame those evils, and now we have four years to save this country. God bless Donald Trump for never giving up.
