UGLY TALK
What is the ‘racehorse theory’ and has Trump endorsed it?
THE "racehorse theory" is the dangerous and offensive notion that selective breeding can boost a country in certain ways.
President Trump made some comments on genes that some have found alarming.
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What is the racehorse theory?
The "racehorse theory" involves selective breeding or eugenics, which was practiced by the Nazis when they massacred millions of Jews.
The theory was initially used for horses and later used to justify selective breeding of humans, according to .
The suggestion that the human race can be bettered with selective breeding has been widely discredited.
Eugenics means "good creation" and is the study of improving the human race through genes.
Has Trump endorsed the theory?
mentioned genes and the "racehorse theory" during a speech in Minnesota on September 18.
“You have good genes, you know that, right?” Trump told the crowd, which was mostly white.
What have people said about Trump's comments?
A senior lecturer on Jewish studies at Loyola Marymount University in said Trump's comments were offensive and alarming.
“To hear these remarks said at a rally in an election campaign for the presidency is beyond reprehensible,” said Rabbi Mark Diamond, according to The Los Angeles Times.
“This is at the heart of 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.”
Wrote a Twitter user: "Trump believes in Eugenics and actually practices it. That’s his entire approach to .
"He feels the people with the “good genes” will not get it or if they get it will survive. Others will die from it. Especially since it is documented it disproportionately kills blacks & POC."
And NYT bestseller Steve Silberman wrote: 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."
“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 .”
Trump also appeared to touch on the subject during the first presidential debate with.
“You could never have done the job we did,” Trump told Biden.
“You don’t have it in your blood.”
Trump told CNN's Larry King in 2007, before he became president: “You can absolutely be taught things. Absolutely. You can get a lot better.
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"But there is something. You know, the racehorse theory, there is something to the genes. And I mean, when I say something, I mean a lot.”
Trump biographer Michael D'Antonio, who wrote The Truth About Trump, says the Trump family has a "very deep attraction" to eugenics.
";The family subscribes to a racehorse theory of human development, that they believe that there are superior people, and that if you put together the genes of a superior woman and a superior man, you get superior offspring," he said, according to .
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