What Trump really means when he says immigrants have “bad genes”

Former president Donald Trump’s new anti-immigration line sounds like a very old one: that immigrants are biologically worse than native-born Americans. In the latest episode of conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt’s podcast, Trump argued that the impulse to murder is determined by one’s genetics — and that immigrants today have “bad genes.” The comments seem to represent Trump’s authentic beliefs. Going back at least to his 1987 book The Art of the Deal, where he said that dealmaking ability is determined “in the genes,” Trump has credited his own success to good genes and blamed poor peoples’ failures on bad ones. But this is possibly the first time — and at least the highest-profile moment — where he has explicitly linked his faith in genetics to his obsession with migrant criminality. While Trump has long (and falsely) maintained that immigrants are responsible for the lion’s share of American crime, he has never explained exactly what it is about the current wave of migrants that makes them so much more likely to commit violent acts. Now we know the answer: that, per Trump, “[being] a murderer — I believe this — it’s in their genes.” Trump’s comments fit neatly into a broader conservative intellectual universe, unintentionally combining two disparate ideas on the right into a disturbing synthesis. 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.” It doesn’t take a historian to see the disturbing parallels at work here. The right’s deep belief in genetic determinants of crime American conservatism, as I’ve argued previously, sees an insistence on the idea of a fixed human nature as one of its defining traits. For some conservatives, this manifests as a notion that inequalities are natural: that the very best rise to the top due to their innate gifts, while the poor remain so due to their own failings. This is the central theme of The Bell Curve, the infamous 1994 book on the role of intelligence in America’s social structure. Though best remembered for its infamous claim that racial inequalities likely reflect the superior intelligence of whites relative to Blacks, the book’s main focus is using research to naturalize America’s class structure. The Bell Curve treats intelligence as a heritable, largely genetic trait. Modern societies, the book writes, are extremely good at identifying and elevating their most genetically gifted children, producing a “cognitive elite” at the top of the social structure and an unintelligent underclass at the bottom. The underclass’ problems are primarily caused by the stupidity of its denizens — including, the book claims, poor communities’ high crime rates. “Many people tend to think of criminals as coming from the wrong side of the tracks. They are correct, insofar as that is where people of low cognitive ability disproportionately live,” authors Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein wrote. Like many of The Bell Curve’s arguments, linking criminality to genetics has remained a popular move among right-wing intellectuals even as the modern evidence base tells a more complicated story. After Trump’s Hugh Hewitt interview, prominent right-wing commentator Richard Hanania insisted that “he’s right that crime is largely genetic.” Interestingly, Hanania dissented from Trump’s application of this idea to immigrants. Correctly pointing out that immigrants are no more prone to crime than native-born Americans, Hanania concluded that immigrants as a group don’t have the “bad genes” that incline certain people toward criminality. “Trump is lying on crime, even when he tells the truth about genetics,” Hanania concludes. But in this, he is in the right-wing minority: most share Trump’s view of immigrants as an especially criminal and essentially alien group. Indeed, this has led the modern right to take a very different view of America as a country than they have in the past — one that ties in uncomfortably well with Trump’s comments on genes and crime. America as a (biological) nation In one of his earliest political speeches, Ronald Reagan insisted that “America is less of a place than an idea.” The American idea, per Reagan, is that “deep within the heart of each one of us is something so God-like and precious that no individual or group has a right to impose his or its will upon the people.” Reagan is expressing the traditional conservative movement view of American national identity: that it is defined by our shared commitment to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. This kind of nationalism, which scholars term “creedal” or “civic” nationalism,” gives rise to a deep belief that anyone can be an American provided they are properly socialized into American ideals. As president, Reagan offered amnesty to millions of undocumented migrants and explicitly welcomed people crossing the Southern border. “Rather than making them or talking about putting up a fence, why don’t we work out some recognition of our mutual problems, make it possible for them to come here legally with a work permit,” as he put it in a 1980 presidential debate. Today, of course, putting up a fence is Republican orthodoxy. Gone too is Reagan’s creedal nationalism and its welcoming, idealistic spirit. Instead, the modern right is increasingly enamored by a darker vision of American nationalism: one in which the country’s identity is defined less by its founding ideals than by blood and soil. Americanness is not set by commitment to principles of liberty and equality, but rather by one’s historical and familial connections to the country. It is a more classically European way of seeing national identity, and one that’s echoed at the highest levels of the current Republican Party. “America is not just an idea. It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation,” Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance said during his speech at the Republican National Convention. While allowing that “it is part of that tradition, of course, that we welcome newcomers,” Vance argued that this tradition also requires strict criteria for the number and kind of newcomers who should be permitted. Immigrants may only be allowed “on our terms,” or else America will lose the sense of nationhood that he believes underpins the country’s greatness. “People will not fight for abstractions, but they will fight for their home. And if this movement of ours is going to succeed, and if this country is going to thrive, our leaders have to remember that America is a nation, and its citizens deserve leaders who put its interests first,” Vance said. Trump made a similar, if more pointed, argument in a September campaign speech in Pennsylvania. “It takes centuries to build the unique character of each state,” the former president said. “But reckless migration policy can change it very quickly and destroy everything in its way.” In his recent comments about immigrants and crime, Trump shows how this new nationalism fits together with the longstanding conservative preoccupation with genetics. It is not just that America is a country for a specific kind of people; it’s that the people we’re letting in are biologically incapable of becoming peaceful Americans. Creedal nationalism’s faith in assimilation is not merely misplaced, but a delusional denial of genetic reality. The only responsible conservatism, on this account, is one that understands the United States as an almost physical entity: one whose survival depends on keeping its gene pool full of desirables. We’ve seen versions of this nationalism before. It does not tend to end well. This story was adapted from the On the Right newsletter. New editions drop every Wednesday. Sign up here.

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What Trump really means when he says immigrants have “bad genes”