I’m only in my early 20s and I am assuming, perhaps naïvely, that I will live an actuarially normal life. I have more than 50 years remaining. This i… - Charlie Kirk

Most of Washington can’t comprehend how this could have happened. They’re as perplexed by his achievements as they are by his giant crowds. They think they know what competence looks like: a four-hundred-dollar haircut and consultants telling you how not to make news. Never be funny. Take yourself too seriously for that. Meet as often as possible with other leaders who also have spent their careers trying not to generate headlines. Where average Americans see in Trump an effort to restore greatness through opportunity and prosperity, the elite see someone alarming. If you can succeed in politics without the help of hundreds of lawyers, lobbyists, and reporters propping you up, an awful lot of members of the elite could be on the verge of losing their jobs.

Cicero came from a wealthy family, and through his oratory became what we might now dub a major media star in ancient Rome. He could have enjoyed a life of luxury and avoided conflict but regarded his foray into politics, necessitated by his sense of civic duty, as his greatest achievement. He spent much of that political career combating conspiracies to overthrow the republic, in a fashion that might well be dismissed as paranoid by the complacent elitists of our own day. His fears were proven tragically correct, though, as Julius Caesar (sometimes talked about now as if he were the very pinnacle of Roman achievement but in truth a dictator who was the death knell of the Republic) pushed Rome in the direction of empire. Cicero himself ended up executed by government soldiers, his head and hands later displayed on Rome’s central public speaking platform, a final taunt to Mark Antony — one of Caesar’s allies, and after Caesar’s assassination, part of Rome’s ruling triumvirate.

He is guided by a faith that most Americans seemed to share until very recently. Our forefathers founded this country on sound principles, including standing up for the freedom of the individual. These principles with ancient roots have made something wonderful and new possible upon the face of the Earth, a freedom and prosperity never before known.