November saw 146 unique examples of horrible behavior by Donald and his Administration, along with a marked increase in authoritarianism, anti-intellectualism, and social Darwinism over October.

Kathleen Hartnett White, Donald’s choice for White House environmental advisor, believes coal ended slavery and climate change is a myth (Image Credit: Texas Monthly)

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In November, instances of four categories increased significantly from October: anti-intellectualism, authoritarianism, social Darwinism, and economic ignorance.

The spike in anti-intellectualism was driven by multiple attacks on higher education (such as including tuition vouchers as income in the tax plans) and the nomination clearly unqualified individuals to federal offices. For example, Donald’s nominee to run NASA, Congressman Jim Bridenstine, does not have a scientific or engineering background, denies the reality of industrial climate disruption (aka global warming or climate change), and he purged his social media and web presence prior to his confirmation hearings. Similarly unqualified individuals have been nominated for the federal bench and to be the White House environmental advisor.

There were a total of 36 instances of authoritarianism in October. That increased by nearly double to 63 instances in November. Some examples include Donald’s tweets calling for the death penalty in the New York City truck attack, multiple calls to investigate Hillary Clinton yet again, Donald undercutting Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, use of propaganda in a failed effort to influence the Virginia governor election, Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ call for an aggressive new federal marijuana policy, Donald’s support of accused pedophile Roy Moore, the Administration’s ending of an international anti-corruption effort, and almost daily attacks on the media as “fake news.”

Mick Mulvaney, who has called for ending the CFPB, has been nominated to head the agency. (Image Credit: ABCNews)

Social Darwinism – the widely discredited idea that the poor are poor because they’re dumber or weaker while the wealthy are successful because they are smarter, stronger, or more capable – spiked in November because of repeated attacks on the Affordable Care Act, multiple policies that make coal mining more dangerous, and continued attacks on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Social Darwinism combined with widespread economic ignorance in the GOP tax plans, both of which were strongly and repeatedly supported by Donald and his Administration. Social Darwinism was present in attack on the individual healthcare mandate, the elimination of deductions for state and local taxes, the zygote personhood provisions, and the general “reverse-Robin Hood” nature of both the House and Senate plans. The overall “trickle-down” approach of the plans showed a complete ignorance of basic economics, because trickle-down economics has been tried repeatedly and it as never worked. It didn’t work for Reagan (Reagan and Bush both raised taxes), it didn’t work in Louisiana, it didn’t work in Colorado Springs (they raised taxes after public services were cut deeper than anyone wanted). And it failed so spectacularly in Kansas that when it came time to override Governor Brownback’s veto of new taxes, even Republicans joined Democrats and successfully overrode the veto.

Summary
In the month of November, 2017, I identified 146 unique instances that met one or more of my 51 categories (see below for a complete list). Between July 1 (when I started tracking unique instances of Donald and his Administration doing horrible things) and November 30, I’ve tracked a total of 570 examples of horrible behavior.

Horrible Categories