Trump’s touting of theory tied to eugenics and Nazis alarms Jewish leaders
President Donald Trump has alarmed Jewish leaders and others with remarks that appeared to endorse “racehorse theory” — the idea that selective breeding can improve a country’s performance, which American eugenicists and German Nazis used in the last century to buttress their goals of racial purity.
“You have good genes, you know that, right?” Trump told a mostly white crowd of supporters in Bemidji, Minnesota, on Sept. 18. “You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn’t it? Don’t you believe? The racehorse theory. You think we’re so different? You have good genes in Minnesota.”
Rabbi Mark Diamond, a senior lecturer on Jewish studies at Loyola Marymount University, was stunned.
“To hear these remarks said at a rally in an election campaign for the presidency is beyond reprehensible,” said Diamond, the former executive vice president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California.
“This is at the heart of
Nazi ideology. … This has brought so much tragedy and destruction to the Jewish people and to others. It’s actually hard to believe in 2020 we have to revisit these very dangerous theories.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comments.
Trump’s remark was not the first time that he has spoken favorably about the racehorse analogy, which has been embraced by white supremacists for decades.
But these latest comments come as the country has been roiled over racial injustice and the protests against it. Trump has continued to make inflammatory remarks, and his campaign has made blatantly racist appeals.
During the presidential debate last Tuesday, he deflected when asked to unambiguously disavow white supremacists. And he touched upon the genetic theory, returning to a frequent sentiment — that one’s skills are innate.
“You could never have done the job we did,” Trump said to former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee. “You don’t have it in your blood.”
Trump has long spoken about his beliefs in the superiority of his genes, dating back to his days as a Manhattan
developer; he has talked less frequently of his belief in the racehorse theory, which basically calls for using breeding to encourage desirable traits and eliminate undesirable traits.
Initially used for horses, the theory was used to justify selective breeding of people, including forced-sterilization laws that were on the books in 32 states and used in some of them up through the 1970s.
Scientists who study human intelligence and accomplishment generally agree that while genetics might play some role, the success of individuals is heavily shaped by their environment, including their families and neighborhoods, as well as other factors, including mentoring and simple chance.
Trump views the issue differently.
“You can absolutely be taught things. Absolutely.
You can get a lot better. But there is something. You know, the racehorse theory, there is something to the genes,” Trump told Larry King on CNN in 2007. “And I mean, when I say something, I mean a lot.”
Three years later, he told CNN that his father was successful and it naturally followed that he would be, too: “I have a certain gene. I’m a gene believer. Hey, when you connect two racehorses, you usually end up with a fast horse. And I really was — you know, I had a — a good gene pool from the standpoint of that.”
He used the phrase again at a 2016 campaign rally in Iowa, and his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., told his father’s biographer that the family believed in the theory.
“Like him, I’m a big believer in racehorse theory. He’s an incredibly accomplished guy, my mother’s incredibly accomplished, she’s an Olympian, so I’d like to believe genetically I’m predisposed to better-thanaverage,” Trump Jr. told Michael D’Antonio in a 2014 interview, according to a transcript provided by the author.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, some mainstream scientists and elected officials in the United States, particularly in California, urged “the improvement” of the citizenry through eugenics. The concept was often used against people of color, Jewish people and Native Americans, but it was also used against white people who were deemed “feebleminded,” delinquent or otherwise damaged.
Eugenics arose in the U.S. as the gains that Black people had made during the Reconstruction era came under attack by white people aiming to maintain power, often by murder and mob violence. It was also used to argue against immigration by Italians and others.
Nazi Germany ran the Lebensborn program to cultivate Aryan traits. The state provided support to pregnant women — mostly unmarried — deemed racially “pure”; many of the babies were given to German couples, often SS officers and their families.