Donald Trump’s Inevitable Descent Into Eugenics

There is nothing new about Donald Trump. He’s been slinging the same old crap—tribalism, nativism, demagoguery, bigotry, ignorance, and hate—since he slithered into the 2016 presidential campaign as a novelty act. Yet pundits and others still act surprised when he reveals what resides within his dark soul.

There was a rush of outrage earlier this week when Trump appeared on right-wing commentator Hugh Hewitt’s show and asserted (falsely) that thousands of murderers have illegally crossed the US-Mexico border and are “now living happily in the United States.” Trump added, “You know, now, a murderer, I believe this, it’s in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.” Trump apparently was suggesting migrants had “bad genes,” and the comment drew plenty of opprobrium. A campaign aide insisted he had been referring to murderers, not immigrants. But given his previous claim that migrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country, it didn’t seem a stretch that Trump was engaging in noxious race science as part of his never-ending demagogic campaign to demean and demonize migrants.

And there was nothing new about this. When I was reporting on Trump in 2016, I discovered that this guy was obsessed with DNA and the notion that genes determine who will be successful and who won’t. Of course, he said he had the best genes.

For almost four decades, Trump has been braying about his supposedly top-of-the-line genes. In his 1987 ghost-written bestseller, The Art of the Deal, Trump observed, “More than anything else, I think deal-making is an ability you’re born with. It’s in the genes.” And as my colleague Isabela Dias points out, in 1988, Trump told Oprah Winfrey, “You have to be born lucky in the sense that you have to have the right genes.”

There’s more: In a 1990 Playboy interview, he remarked that when it came to success, “I’m a strong believer in genes.” A decade later, talking to CNN, he noted, “I think I was born with a drive for success. I had a father who was successful. He was a builder in Brooklyn and Queens. And he was successful and, you know, 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 good gene pool from the standpoint of that.”

That same year he remarked, “I really believe that a leader is born more so than made.” During a speech the following year, he asserted that dealing with pressure is a key to succeeding in business and that “some people cannot genetically handle pressure.” In another speech in 2011 on how to succeed, Trump observed, “A lot of you people have a certain factor that make you successful. A lot of people don’t.” At a campaign rally in Biloxi, Mississippi, in 2016, the failed casino owner and often-bankrupted developer proclaimed, “I have Ivy League education, smart guy, good genes. I have great genes and all that stuff which I’m a believer in.”

To demonstrate his biological status, Trump has regularly boasted about his deceased uncle, John Trump, who was an engineer, inventor, physicist, and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and cited him as evidence of Trump’s own wonderful genetic legacy. As the New Yorker reported in 2016,

In South Carolina, earlier this year, [Trump] noted, “Dr. John Trump at M.I.T.; good genes, very good genes, O.K., very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart.” (Donald Trump was at Wharton as an undergraduate, after transferring from Fordham.) To the Boston Globe: “My father’s brother was a brilliant man . . . We have very good genetics.” And then on NBC, after telling Lester Holt that his uncle was a professor at M.I.T.: “I mean it’s a good gene pool right there”—he pointed to his head—"I have to do what I have to do.”

Trump went so far in believing in genetic determination that he once dumped on the most famous line of the Declaration of Independence. In a video for a 2006 book he co-wrote, Why We Want You to Be Rich, he was asked, “Do you think anybody can be rich?” His answer:

No, I don’t think anybody can get rich. I think unfortunately the world is not a fair place. I think you have to be born with a certain intelligence. And it doesn’t have to be a super intelligence, it has to be a certain intelligence. You can’t take somebody that’s not a smart person and say, “By the way, this is what you do, and here’s your little card, and you’re gonna follow these rules and regulations and you’re gonna become a rich person.” The world is not fair. You know they come with this statement “all men are created equal.” Well, it sounds beautiful, and it was written by some very wonderful people and brilliant people, but it’s not true because all people and all men [laughter] aren’t created—now today they’d say all men and women, of course, they would have changed that statement that was made many years ago. But the fact is you have to be born and blessed with something up here [pointing to his head]. On the assumption you are, you can become very rich.

Trump’s ideas about genes—and his own genes—are deeply ingrained. As Zack Beauchamp wrote in Vox, they “fit neatly into a broader conservative intellectual universe, unintentionally combining two disparate ideas on the right into a disturbing synthesis.” He explained:

Right-wing intellectuals have long been fascinated by genetic determinism—a belief that people’s lot in life, including their propensity to commit crime, is set at birth. Separately, some Trump-era conservatives have declared war on the Reaganite vision of America as a nation defined by its founding ideals rather than the ethno-cultural identity of its people.

Trump’s musings about genes tie these notions into a coherent whole. Immigration is an existential threat to America, per Trump, because it brings in people who are genetically incapable of assimilating into the American body politic. America is a nation determined by its people—specifically, people who have “good genes.”

Several commentators noted that Trump’s recent statement calls to mind eugenics, a pseudoscience much favored by you-know-who. Adolf Hitler incorporated eugenics into Mein Kampf, and these ideas became one of the bases of the Nazis’ genocidal policies. But one need not compare Trump to the Fuhrer—though once upon a time JD Vance did—to see the danger in his gene-shaming of migrants and others.

As a malignant narcissist, Trump naturally considers his genes to be better than those of others. And for decades he has shown us—that is, those of us who have bothered to pay attention—that he views the world as a genetic hierarchy, with whole swaths of people inferior. But there’s a side to this story Trump doesn’t want to highlight. His own family seems to have a predisposition toward dementia. His father was diagnosed when he was in his 80s. His sister who died last year at the age of 86 exhibited signs of dementia, and other family members have been stricken with it. Trump is 78 years old.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland.corn@gmail.com.

For nearly a decade, I’ve been pondering Trump's brazen dishonesty. Why does he lie so often and so deeply about…just about everything? How does he get away with this tsunami of prevarication? Why has his countless assaults on the truth never become a political liability? I’ve not come up with a fully satisfactory answer. But all this cogitation recently led me to a realization: Trump is running a disinformation operation, not a political campaign.

Most politicians lie, and some do it a lot. Usually, these lies are tied to something tangible, like mischaracterizing the policy position of an opponent. Yet Trump does something else. He just makes stuff up. Migrants eating pets. Millions of thugs released from prisons and insane asylums pouring across the border each month. Malevolent gangs of undocumented immigrants taking over towns and cities throughout the Midwest. Schools performing gender-affirming operations on children. Democratic-run states allowing the execution of babies after they are born. Crime so rampant, “you can’t walk across the street to get a loaf of bread. You get shot, you get mugged, you get raped.”

Trump’s deceptions go far beyond the routine campaign lying. He concocts and promotes utterly false narratives to shape voters’ perceptions of fundamental realities. His campaign is a full-fledged project to pervert how Americans view the nation and the world, an extensive propaganda campaign designed to fire up fears and intensify anxieties that Trump can then exploit to collect votes. And the political media world has yet to come to terms with the fact that Trump is heading a disinformation crusade more likely to be found in an authoritarian state than a vibrant democracy.

Not merely peddling a series of lies, Trump is knitting together a full story that is utterly bogus, trying to convince tens of millions of a reality that does not exist: that we are living in a dangerous hellhole in which we’re imperiled by barbarians, who happen to be people of color; that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have purposefully orchestrated this purportedly deadly situation; and that only he can save us. It’s all BS. He is endeavoring to use lies to create an alternative reality for millions so they will vote on the basis of a false understanding of the world.

Having experienced this epiphany, I wrote an essay fleshing it out. For the piece, I spoke to several historians who have studied authoritarianism. And I believe I came up with a slightly new or different way of thinking about Trump and this election. The article, which was posted a few days ago, has received a good dose of attention and earned me several invitations to discuss it on assorted news outlets. I’m still wondering what the best way is to respond to a candidate who mounts a disinformation crusade, and I might do some noodling on that soon. In the meantime, I urge you to give it a read and let me know what you think. You can find it here.

The judges were dumbfounded that Hurricane Helene spurred such an outpouring of idiocy and falsehoods. The story ought to be straightforward for all: big storm; terrible damage; federal, state, and local authorities help those in need. Yet Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Bonkers) claimed that “they” had used a weather machine to bring about this hurricane, presumably to strike areas likely to vote for Donald Trump. (Yes, she believes climate change is a hoax but that dark forces can “control the weather.”) And Trump himself spewed multiple lies: There were “no helicopters, no rescue” in North Carolina; $1 billion was “stolen” from FEMA for migrants and went “missing”; and so on. Despite all that, his dumbest comment of the week came when he was being interviewed by conservative pundit Ben Shapiro and suggested both President Joe Biden and Harris should be removed from office via the 25th Amendment. He then wondered aloud, “Who’s third on line?” Trump did not know the House speaker is No. 3 in the presidential line of succession.

A hurricane-related entry came from right-wing loudmouth Matt Walsh: “There was a lot of talk about this being an incoming historic hurricane season, because of climate change and all that jazz. But then a funny thing happened during the historic hurricane season. And that is nothing. Nothing happened. There were basically—there were no hurricanes.”

Oops. But when the judges investigated, they discovered that this quote, circulated by Media Matters, had occurred during a September 9 show. Consequently, it was disqualified for this week but earned an honorable mention.

Elon Musk made the final cut this week, thanks to his inane interview with Tucker Carlson. “Nobody is even bothering to try to kill Kamala because it’s pointless,” Trump’s weirdest fanboy said to the ex-Fox host. “What do you achieve? Nothing, you just bought another puppet.” Laughing and smiling, Carlson replied, “Deep and true.” And Musk, guffawing at his own remark, continued: “Nobody is trying to kill Joe Biden. It would be pointless.”

Once upon a time, if a CEO of several major companies—including one with large government contracts—and a prominent media personality joked about the assassination of a president and vice president, it would have caused a big problem for both. Now, there are no consequences, and Musk and Carlson clearly think they’re cool to be so edgy. But this chuckling about political murders says far more about these bozos than they intended.

During a call this week with reporters, Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said that Roe v. Wade should never have been a federal decision and the Supreme Court was correct to hand the issue of abortion to the states. A sharp journalist asked him if the same logic applied to the Supreme Court decision that struck down state laws that made interracial marriages illegal. He replied, “When it comes to issues, you can’t have it both ways. When you want that diversity to shine within our federal system, there are going to be rules and proceedings, they’re going to be out of sync with maybe what other states would do. It’s the beauty of the system, and that’s where the differences among points of view in our 50 states ought to express themselves.”

So, the reporter asked, it would be fine with him if the Supreme Court let states decide whether to permit or ban interracial marriage? Braun said, “Yes, I think that is something that if you’re not wanting the Supreme Court to weigh in on issues like that, you’re not going to be able to have your cake and eat it too. It’s hypocritical.”

Oh my. This GOP senator was saying states ought to be able to make it a crime for a Black person and a white person to marry. This caused a firestorm in the Hoosier State, and Braun later said he had “misunderstood a line of questioning” and condemned “racism.” But he sure showed where his head was at.

Unfortunately—or fortunately—for Braun, he was outdone this week by a previous winner: Ari Fleischer, who was press secretary in George W. Bush’s White House and pushed the lies that led the United States into the disastrous Iraq War. He had a message for the media:

To all the reporters asking Republicans if they think Biden won in 2020, please note this is 2024. You should ask Ds if they will accept the 2024 results if Trump wins narrowly. Will Ds commit not to try to overturn the results when the electoral college meets.

This was foolish. After the 2020 election, Trump and many in the GOP refused to accept the results, and most Republicans did little as Trump tried to overturn the election. After Trump incited the January 6 riot, the party stood by him and came to embrace him as its 2024 nominee. Now top Republicans, including JD Vance, refuse to acknowledge that Trump lost the last election. The real question is not how Democrats will react to a narrow defeat in 2024 but whether Trump and his GOP cultists will mount a repeat performance of their perfidy, if he again comes in second. The folks who should be asked to “commit” to not conniving to overturn the results are the ones who attempted to do that before. Especially since Trump himself won’t pledge to honor the tally.

Fleischer’s remark was dumbassery with a star. He wins.

Edward Hackett responded to a recent issue about JD Vance’s multiple ties to right-wing extremism:

The mainstream press has been compliant in the rise of the radical right. By not calling out Vance for his right-wing positions, they made him seem like a typical politician with mainstream views. They leaped on Biden's poor debate performance (rightfully so) but passed on Trump's rambling and continual lies. All of this makes me wonder if Vladimir Putin has purchased much of our media, or is it just a matter of clicks and how much money they can make? There was a time when we had News at Six, but now we have Entertainment at Six. The news media do not educate the public; they sell advertising. Everything is about money.

I can assure you that Putin has not purchased the legacy media. The reluctance to fully explore Vance’s right-wing ties is not part of the Kremlin plot to help Trump return to the White House. It has more to do with the conventions of political journalism that cause many reporters to refrain from chasing these sorts of stories. By the way, the corporate news media has always had the need and desire to make money. That hasn’t changed. But the rise of the internet and devolution in the information landscape—including the collapse of the business model for much of for-profit journalism—has led to a host of problems that deeply affect the production of kickass and important reporting.

Mary Bristow replied to the issue that dug into a big lie Elon Musk spread about former Secretary of State John Kerry:

Musk lies. And so do Trump and Vance, and many others. Hence their deep aversion to being fact-checked in real time. Or at all. The real problem is, as John Kerry pointed out, that the people who get their “information" from only one source—a source that's not going to give the viewer the facts at all, when the whole point is to feed them a lie. And if they do hear a fact-check from another source, they aren't going to believe it anyway.

Which is altogether a worse situation than I envisioned many years ago watching Babylon 5, when a character would approach a news kiosk and ask for their "usual." I thought then that one value of a general interest newspaper and news magazine is that you at least have a chance of noticing stuff that's important that you might not otherwise see, as you flip through to the parts you do want to see. And without that, if all the news you ever see is your favorite movie star or sports team, you'll have no idea why a quart of milk costs $10 one day, or you get a ticket for driving your car with an even numbered license plate on an odd numbered day, or why there are large clouds of black smoke on the horizon. Right now, I feel like there are large clouds of black smoke on the horizon. But at least I know why.

Lila Leland had a complaint:

In a previous newsletter you maligned RFK, Jr. as anti-vaccine. That is the orchestrated character assassination disinformation circulating about him, but it's not true. He's about careful vaccinations. He successfully sued Big Pharma to get mercury removed from children's vaccines. And Big Pharma is reeking their revenge, along with other big business that puts their own profits over everyone else's wellbeing. I hope you weren't lying intentionally.

Lila, I wasn’t lying at all. I direct you to an article the Associated Press published last year. RFK Jr. and his fans have long claimed it is wrong to call him an anti-vaxxer. When he testified to a House committee last year, he insisted, “I have never been anti-vaxx. I have never told the public to avoid vaccination.” That’s not true. As the AP reported,

In July [2013] , Kennedy said in a podcast interview that “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective” and told FOX News that he still believes in the long-ago debunked idea that vaccines can cause autism. In a 2021 podcast he urged people to “resist” CDC guidelines on when kids should get vaccines.

“I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, better not get them vaccinated,” Kennedy said. That same year, in a video promoting an anti-vaccine sticker campaign by his nonprofit, Kennedy appeared onscreen next to one sticker that declared “IF YOU’RE NOT AN ANTI-VAXXER YOU AREN’T PAYING ATTENTION.”

There’s more evidence RFK Jr. is an anti-vaxxer. I’m sorry to burst a bubble for you, Lila. But it’s Kennedy who is the liar. I’m not sure that he even successfully sued Big Pharma regarding mercury in vaccines. (A quick Google search did not confirm that. Did I miss something?) But his claim that small amounts of mercury in vaccines cause autism has been debunked repeatedly by scientists. To see how Kennedy concocts a big fat falsehood, check out this piece from me.

Back to JD Vance, Robert Hardy sent in this:

I always enjoyed your appearances on MSNBC. You state that the public does not know about JD's extreme right-wing associations. So my thought is for you to touch base with one of the MSNBC hosts. This could be another "October Surprise" for the Trump/Vance ticket and the MAGA party, aka, Republicans.

I am flattered that Robert believes I have the power to generate an October Surprise. I have written repeatedly about Vance and his right-wing associations. And I believe most political reporters know about these connections. But I doubt a heavy focus on them now will make a difference. In general, voters decide on the top of the ticket, not the bottom. Moreover, an October Surprise tends to be an actual surprise. There’s nothing surprising about Vance’s weird and troubling ties.

“Why are you running in circles, Moxie?”
“I’m looking for my stick!”
“The yard is full of sticks.”
“Not like this one.”