February, 2018 provided 104 examples of appalling behavior by Donald, with two major speeches, multiple credible allegations of adultery, a marked jump in demagoguery, and several horrible responses to the school massacre in Parkland, Florida.

For other episodes in this ongoing series, please click here

In February, 2018, I counted 104 unique examples of loathsome behavior by Donald. This was down significantly from January, but it’s difficult to identify whether that’s due to Donald being out of the news more or my own inability to track the various instances as closely as in prior months. Regardless, February saw Donald give two major speeches that each hit over 15 of the 51 categories I track. In addition, Donald’s infidelity rose to its peak (to date) and his demagoguery hit a new record to. But it was his responses to the school massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida that best defined Donald’s personal moral, ethical, and intellectual failures in February.

On February 5, Donald visited Ohio and touted his tax “reforms.” In this speech, Donald hit 17 of the 51 categories of horrible behavior. Given his speech was about the tax “cut,” it’s not a surprise that he demonstrated his ignorance of economics, but his speech was also anti-intellectual, anti-environmentalism, belittling, anti-immigrant, and racist. It was demagogic, jingoistic propaganda packed with lies and hypocrisy. It was also fascist and narcissistic in the manner of Benito Mussolini, leader of the Italian Fascist party prior to World War II.

Donald’s speech before the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was arguably worse – less explicitly fascist, for example, but with the most categories of any incident in February – 20 of 51. At CPAC, Donald’s speech was filled with dishonesty, hypocrisy, narcissism, racism, race baiting, immigrant-hating, misogyny, and xenophobia. Donald called for cuts to medical insurance and for arming teachers, justified churches getting directly involved in politics, repeatedly attacked the media, touted his ignorant tax “cuts,” and attacked the rule of law. Donald’s speech was jingoistic, authoritarian, anti-intellectual propaganda, and the CPAC attendees loved it.

For the first time since I started this list, Donald’s serial and repeated infidelities were of interest. There were four unique instances relating to his adultery, but as a percentage, Donald’s infidelities rose from a previous high of about 2% in both January and December to 3.8% in February. Beyond the ongoing Stormy Daniels saga, former Playboy playmate of the year Karen McDougal described to The New Yorker the details of how Donald’s business and legal allies had purchased her silence with respect to her own 2006 affair with Donald. And Ivanka Trump complained about the media asking her opinion about the many, many credible allegations of her father’s repeated adultery.

Donald’s demagoguery again took center stage in February, with 24 examples (the second highest since starting this project) and the highest percentage of unique instances of horrendous behavior yet (23.1%). Of the various examples, Donald’s calling for a military parade in his honor is perhaps the most blatant example of demagoguery (appealing to emotion and prejudice rather than reason), as well as narcissism and jingoism. Donald also regularly attacked the various Russia investigations in his tweets using phrases like “WITCH HUNT!” It wasn’t until after the massacre at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida that Donald’s demagoguery went into high gear, when he rejected active shooter drills because they were too stressful on students, while at the same time promoting the moronic idea of arming teachers to shoot back.

The Parkland massacre drove Donald to exhibit appalling behavior 10 times in February. That was nearly 10% of all the instances of horrible behavior Donald showed. He tweeted thoughts and prayers (excuse me, “prayers and condolences“) at the victims. He endorsed arming teachers. Donald bullied the school resource officer who didn’t go into the school to try and stop the shooting (because a handgun has a snowball’s chance in hell against an AR15…) and claimed that he would have “run in there even if [he] didn’t have a weapon.” And he rejected calls for tighter gun laws and failed to pressure Republicans in Congress to actually do something about school massacres in the US.

Summary
In the month of February, 2018, I identified 104 unique items that met one or more of my 51 categories. (see below for a complete list).

Horrible categories