Trump Seems To Be Defying This Law of Human Existence

From today’s Daily Stoic:

There is an immutable, inescapable law of human existence that comes to us from the Stoics through Heraclitus (one of Marcus Aurelius’ favorites): Character is fate.

After death and taxes, this is a timeless adage that the Stoics believed will determine our destiny whether we like it or not. And just a quick glimpse around the world and across history confirms it: Liars and cheats eventually destroy themselves. The corrupt overreach. The ignorant make fatal, self-inflicted mistakes. The egotistical ignore the data that challenges them and the warnings that could save them. The selfish end up isolated and alone, even if they’re surrounded by fame and fortune. The “robbers, perverts, killers and tyrants” Marcus Aurelius wrote about always end up in a hell of their own making. It’s a law as true as gravity.

Bad character might drive someone into a position of leadership—because of their ambition, their ruthlessness, their shamelessness—but eventually, inevitably, this supposed “strength” becomes an Achilles’ heel when it comes time to actually do the job.

We’ve all seen this law at work in our lives.  Business titans who lie and cheat come crashing down.  How did this all work out for Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby?

But the world has never known a more thoroughgoing con man than Donald Trump.  Virtually every day, he says or does something that a) gets the attention of everyone in America who isn’t living in a cave, and b) reveals–just one more time–that he is completely devoid of honor and decency.

But he seems impervious to injury.  He successfully had the U.S. Senate acquit him of the impeachment charges–without even listening to the evidence against him.

How long can this persist?  I would have said that keeping all this rank dishonesty afloat was akin to balancing a bowling ball on a toothpick, but every day we wake up, and read the newest tale of horror.