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

Bioethics Forum Essay

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 20^th 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