Is character destiny?

It is a blustery blue-sky day, the kind of day that March is known for. I've made 3 leisurely trips to the grocery store today, and spent the rest of the day cooking. 

The first trip to the grocery store, early in the day, was the interesting one. Enormous lines, some shelves (paper products, frozen veggies, rice and butter) picked clean. I suppose people feel like they need to be ready for shortages. Or they need to feel less helpless. Or perhaps they feel like they need to keep pace with their neighbors, not be left out. What if they were the only ones on the streets without two months' worth of canned tomatoes?

I've been thinking lately about the connection, if there is one, between competence and character. Sometimes, at least, incompetence can be linked to failings in character. This is probably about what Churchill meant when he said that character is destiny. I don't know if it's always true, but I do think it often is.

The Never Trumpers really based their whole argument on this one point. Character is destiny. Vote a bad man into power and his sin will ramify. There will be consequences, and they will not be pretty. And this is an idea inherent to Christianity (not exclusively, of course). The idea that sin must be taken seriously, and that it will prove a man's downfall.

I think Peter Wehner gets this point in his recent editorial in The Atlantic, called The Trump Presidency is Over. Is he right? Have we reached an inflection point, as Wehner says, after which nothing will be the same? Wehner's central point is that the moral failings of the president are writ large in his response to the Covid-19 crisis. After detailing a long litany of self-serving lies and misstatements from this president, Wehner goes on:

Taken together, this is a massive failure in leadership that stems from a massive defect in character. Trump is such a habitual liar that he is incapable of being honest, even when being honest would serve his interests. He is so impulsive, shortsighted, and undisciplined that he is unable to plan or even think beyond the moment. He is such a divisive and polarizing figure that he long ago lost the ability to unite the nation under any circumstances and for any cause. And he is so narcissistic and unreflective that he is completely incapable of learning from his mistakes. The president’s disordered personality makes him as ill-equipped to deal with a crisis as any president has ever been. With few exceptions, what Trump has said is not just useless; it is downright injurious.

I think this is exactly right.