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Bioethics Forum Essay

The Alarming History Behind Trump’s “Bad Genes” Comments

In a recent interview with conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, Donald Trump drew a link between immigration, violent crime, and genetics, stating, “we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”  Comments such as these are not new. Claims regarding genes and human behavior have long been used to perpetuate social harm. Understanding this history shows just how pervasive and harmful the former president’s comments are. They also illustrate how influential they can be in shaping social policies.

Trump’s interview with Hewitt wasn’t the first time the former President made disparaging comments about migrants. During his October presidential debate with Kamala Harris, for instance, he claimed that Haitian immigrants were eating pets – harmful misinformation that has left many members of the Haitian community fearful for their safety.  The Hewitt interview also wasn’t the first time Trump vocalized false ideas about genes. In 1988, for example, he was recorded on the Oprah Winfrey Show saying to its host, “You have to be born lucky in the sense that you have to have the right genes.” Later, while running for president in 2016 and throughout his tenure in the White House, Trump was captured in video recordings making statements like “some people cannot genetically handle pressure.”

The former president’s latest comments about immigrants bringing “bad genes” into the United States are part of a longer, racialized history in which claims about genetic difference have been used to further social divisions, explain social inequalities, and justify racial violence. Specifically, such claims have been used to resist the abolition of slavery, prohibit interracial marriage, forcibly sterilize the poor and communities of color, restrict immigration, and even rationalize mass-shootings.

In the early 20th century, political and scientific leaders frequently invoked biology to explain society’s ills, using it to pass exclusionary policies that emboldened the elite and harmed the marginalized. For example, in 1922, Harry H. Laughlin, superintendent of research at the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island went before Congress as a designated “expert eugenics agent” to provide his analysis of “America’s modern melting pot.” Laughlin’s views were clear: “new immigration” from regions such as Eastern and Southern Europe was responsible for the “higher incidence of criminalistic conduct” in the United States. His testimony played a critical role in the passage of the Johnson-Reed Immigration Restriction Act of 1924. The law set immigration quotas that severely restricted immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe and virtually ended immigration from Southeast and East Asia.

These dangerous, pseudoscientific ideas continue today. The Trump political campaign is advocating for harsh immigration reforms, such as mass deportations, and painting a false picture of an America teeming with immigrants who are biologically hardwired to commit murder. Immigration restrictions, which Harry H. Laughlin, his contemporaries, and now, over a century later, Trump have called for, are rooted in the idea that there is a need to prevent genetic “threats” from entering into American society.

Mixed into many anti-immigrant sentiments is the “great replacement theory,” a harmful ideology that first arose in France during the 1990s and was coined by the French nationalist Renaud Camus in his 2011 book Le Grand Remplacement. The great replacement theory is the toxic belief that white, and oftentimes also Christian culture, are at risk of being eradicated by immigration or non-Christian groups such as Jews. Camus, for example, feared that Islamization and the “genetic manipulations” resulting from immigration, would ultimately eradicate the French culture and the “white race”. The great replacement theory has been taken up by white nationalists across the globe – including Trump’s former White House advisor Stephen Miller. Anders Brevik, the neo-Nazi who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011 talked about the great replacement theory in his manifesto, as did Brenton Tarrant, a far-right extremist who fatally shot 51 people in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. More recently, the Buffalo shooter who murdered 10 Black Americans at a Buffalo, N.Y. supermarket in May 2022 cited the great replacement theory alongside a number of genetic studies as justifications for his crimes.

Finally, many of the same historical and contemporary figures problematizing immigration are also believers in racehorse theory, which, as the name suggests, originated in the context of horse racing to produce thoroughbred horses through careful breeding. The idea that “desirable” offspring can be produced through intentional reproduction among “desirable” parents has since been applied to human populations. For example, Francis Galton, one of the fathers of both the eugenics movement and the field now referred to as behavior genetics, sought to encourage marriage and childrearing among Britain’s most eminent members of society. Trump himself is a proponent of racehorse theory.At a reelection campaign rally in Minnesota in 2020, he told the crowd: “You have good genes. A lot of it is about genes, isn’t it, don’t you believe? The racehorse theory — you think we’re so different? You have good genes in Minnesota.”

As the U.S. heads towards one of the most polarizing elections in its history, it’s important to realize that much of the damaging rhetoric about genes and immigration is old poison in a new bottle. There are, however, two things that are different. First, these harmful ideas are resurging and circulating rapidly thanks to social media. Second, such ideas are no longer a part of the scientific mainstream, as they were during the era of Francis Galton and later Harry H. Laughlin. We should take hope from this latter point.

The scientific community has challenged pseudoscientific justifications for hate before. While scientists can be wary of getting involved in politics, our research has the potential to disprove the harmful ideas being wielded by political actors. However, it also carries the risk of being misused in support of such ideas.

We must make it harder for scientific research to be wielded by those looking to create social divisions. For instance, some scientists have recommended altering scientific figures so that they are harder to “meme-ify,” and do not convey the false message that humanity is made up of biologically distinct populations. As another example, scientists have taken up the difficult task of reimagining how biology is taught in schools. Research shows that teaching students about the complexity of genetics can reduce noxious and incorrect beliefs about race and genetics.

We also need to do a better job of understanding the perspectives of those we do not agree with or who don’t orbit in the same circle. Scientists aren’t trained in mediation and conflict resolution, research communication, or public engagement. But their work extends beyond the lab and into society where it has real impacts. The next generation of scientists ought to be trained in these things. Otherwise, we risk regress rather than progress.

The views expressed are the author’s.

Daphne O. Martschenko, PhD, is an assistant professor at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics. She is co-author of a forthcoming book, The Acid We Inherit, which unpacks contentious social, ethical, and policy issues related to the DNA revolution, to be published by Princeton University Press. She is also a co-creator of Genomic Findings on Human Behavior and Social Outcomes: FAQs. @daphmarts

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Hastings Bioethics Forum essays are the opinions of the authors, not of The Hastings Center.

  1. Thank you for this excellent rehearsal of what everyone in bioethics practice surely (or should) already know. We always need reminding about our drive to invent and defend “dangerous, pseudoscientific ideas” that make us feel better, that justify our social place and privilege, etc.

    I live in the region where avid self-righteous, self-serving leaders of eugenics theories and practice spawned Buck v Bell by which SCOTUS said ‘okey dokey’ go right ahead. Virginia is famous of its long history and its many historical markers: a bit north of home I can find the ‘Buck v. Bell’ marker near where Carrie Buck lived before her false detention as an ‘inferior’ human; and a bit south of home I can find the marker near the childhood home of Henrietta Lacks. The distance between these two markers is not great but there is immense chasm between them propelling health, social, education, economic, and opportunity disparities between them.

    The large rural Southside region of Virginia – that was home to Henriette Lacks – on the wicked side of that chasm.
    And who helped created that chasm: ‘Progressive’ Democrats’ devotion to their fame and fortune with globalist theories and modela that contrived much of rural America to be extraction then sacrifice zones: extract energy (coal, oil, etc; now increasing vast solar factories destroying landscapes, and natural and social ecologies), extract agricultural products, extract poorly paid/poorly protected labor, etc. Leaving waste, economic destruction and social devastation.
    And how do ‘Progressive’ elites feel good about this: looking down on these rural people as intellectually and morally inferior to themselves (‘deplorables’ etc who ‘get what they deserve’, etc).

    Is there any eugenical believing and thinking in the social construction of these deplorable inferiors? I see it. Do you?

    Would you be interested to comment. Thank you.

    Furthermore, you advise
    ” We must make it harder for scientific research to be wielded by those looking to create social divisions. ” Yes, indeed. In this regard I respond that I am a many years long interlocutor with various associations and groups who claim to drive policy by ‘science’: when I review proposed policies that are intended to be for all of health or public health services I routinely find few, or NO rural from rural jurisdiction or with rural cohorts in their work. They have not bothered to understand how rural jurisdictions may be different places requiring different policies or how rural communities/populations may have different values and priorities and needs, and how deprived and depleted – or never existed – infrastructures in rural areas requires different policies. These are poor policies contrived of poor science. Sometimes they cite a rural study, or two, or maybe three, but don’t actually think about what it means, or how it might amend the policies, rather like saying ‘I have a Black friend’ so ‘I’m cool with diversity and equity’.

    And you advise
    ” We also need to do a better job of understanding the perspectives of those we do not agree with or who don’t orbit in the same circle. ” Yes indeed. May I ask the audience: where you work do you know the rural workers who commute in (perhaps just to clean the toilets, tend the grass, or perhaps assist in the lab, or office?). Does your research team include rural cohorts? What ‘rural studies’ are included in your school: ‘Rural Labor Economics’ in the Business School? ‘Rural Health Disparities’ in the School of Medicine? ‘Rural Health Equity’ in the department or program in Public Health? etc. Are then internships and fellowships in rural areas, from Medicine, Nursing, Education, Social Work, Business, Engineering and other schools, departments and programs?

    So, perhaps you see my point: that eugenical ways of believing, thinking and acting are VERY MUCH with us. And very much with Progressives as with Conservatives.

    Respectfully, thank you

  2. This essay reminded me of a book I read a few years ago entitled “Imbeciles” by Adam Cohen. Cohen recounts the story of Carrie Buck, a woman who was sterilized by the state of Virginia in 1927 because she was deemed “feebleminded.” Carrie Buck was born into poverty and raised by a foster family who removed her from school, limiting her educational opportunities. She was then raped by a relative of this foster family and became pregnant. This pregnancy out of wedlock led to her being labeled “feebleminded,” and she was forced to live in a colony. She was sterilized without consent, totally unaware of her inability to have children as she later tried to start a family with her husband. The Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell upheld the Virginia law allowing for her forced sterilization. This case has never been overturned.
    Like the Johnson-Reed Immigration Restriction Act of 1924 Dr. Martschenko mentioned, Buck V. Bell reflects the popularity of the eugenics movement in the U.S. during the early 20th century. This movement, based on pseudoscience that claimed traits like poverty and criminality were hereditary, gained traction among American elites who believed that society could be improved by preventing the reproduction of people with said traits. They used the guise of science to justify social control and prejudice. Unsubstantiated “intelligence tests” categorized people as “morons” or “imbeciles,” and these labels were then used to target marginalized groups. After Buck v. Bell, approximately 70,000 people were sterilized under similar laws in the United States, and many others were institutionalized to prevent them from having children.
    I agree that the legacy of eugenics continues to haunt us today. Trump’s policies and general rhetoric tap into our long history of using “scientific” claims to justify prejudice and discrimination. As election day looms over us, the scientific community must take an active role in promoting ethical communication and public engagement. We must do our due diligence in correcting the misuse of scientific research. I agree with Dr. Martschenko’s call for making scientific figures more difficult to manipulate. Misinformation can spread so easily in the days of social media; those of us working in science fields should be trained in different platforms for public engagement, mediation, and conflict resolution so that we can navigate public misconceptions. Not only is it important to take these steps in our professional lives, but we also must vote for policies that allow us to use our knowledge to promote both education and overall social good, rather than perpetuate harm and injustice.

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