Trump’s touting of “racehorse theory”, a belief in genetic superiority tied to eugenics and the Nazis, is alarming Jewish leaders, as the Los Angeles Times reports:
Trump has long spoken about his beliefs in the superiority of his genes, dating back to his days as a Manhattan developer; he’s 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 ultimately 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.
As the Times notes, Trump has referenced racehorse theory on an off for years, calling himself a “gene believer” in a CNN interview, saying “Hey, when you connect two racehorses, you usually end up with a fast horse.”.
As the Forward’s Rob Eshman noted, this was a clear-as-day whistle to Trump’s white supremacist supporters:
Rob Eshman, the former editor of the Jewish Journal who is now the national editor of the influential Jewish American online newspaper the Forward, said Trump’s language was a clear signal to his supporters who harbor racist or anti-Semitic views.
Racehorse theory “is basically like a forerunner to eugenics theory, which led to the Nazis’ ‘final solution,’” Eshman said after Trump’s Minnesota comments. “It’s one of the least coded messages he has sent.”
As Tim Dickinson notes in Rolling Stone, racehorse theory and eugenics are essentially white supremacy “embraced not as a cultural construct, but as if it were based in hard science. In another moment, Trump’s remarks would have made for a front-page scandal.”
As a historian who has written about the Holocaust, I’ll say bluntly: This is indistinguishable from the Nazi rhetoric that led to Jews, disabled people, LGBTQ, Romani and others being exterminated. This is America 2020. This is where the GOP has taken us. https://t.co/CHMLg804mp
— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) September 20, 2020
Any embrace of eugenics theory should certainly be alarming to the Jewish community, but especially to Jews of Color, who are doubly targeted by such racist pseudo-science. The idea that “good genes” exist usually excludes those of us with melanin. Indeed, it is often our characteristics – characteristics of Jews, characteristics of People of Color – that eugenicists want to see “bred out” of populations in favor of better “breeding”. For the President to not only not denounce such thinking, but to make it part and parcel of a campaign speech, should raise eyebrows in all of our communities.