“Watergate did not bring Richard Nixon down overnight,” said Brian Fallon, Hillary Clinton’s press secretary during the 2016 campaign. “While this scandal feels like it’s playing out at lightning speed, it is still going to take months to fully get to the bottom of things. The Comey hearing may well be an iconic moment, but it won’t be the ballgame.”

Among many impassioned critics of the president, a belief persists that a single act of sheer stupidity or controversy or embarrassment will undo Trump. It’s a theory that extends back to Trump’s formal entrance into electoral politics, when he descended his gilded escalator and called a subset of Mexicans “rapists.” It regained life regularly during the campaign and has followed him to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where each revelation of murky ethics and professional malfeasance prompts another round of “surely this will do him in” chatter.

And yet, Trump remains ― wounded professionally but there nonetheless.

His perseverance is, perhaps, his greatest political strength, continually befuddling opponents.