Minor Thoughts from me to you

President Trump really, really likes the eugenics arguments that were popular in the early 1900s. This makes him a racist. There’s no other way to describe someone who believes that one people group has “better genes” than another people group.

Jewish leaders alarmed by Trump's support of 'racehorse theory'

by Seema Mehtastaff, for the Los Angeles Times

President 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, Minn., 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 comment.

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.