Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson
“Cicero offered a useful piece of advice: Esse quam videri — ‘be rather than seem,’ that the important thing is to be virtuous or good or successful or courageous rather than merely to appear to be. Trump has spent his life turning that on its head: He was a middling businessman who was in bankruptcy court a lot more often than he was at the top of the game, so he spent years playing a successful businessman on television. He cannot write an ordinary good English sentence, but he paid someone to write a book and put his name on it. His imaginary friend John Barron would call writers at the New York Post and other outlets to tell them silly lies about everything from Trump’s business successes to his dating life. And, of course, he emblazons his name on things — most recently, the Kennedy Center.” (12/19/25)