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Many people were shocked<\/span> <\/strong>to read allegations last year<\/a> by <\/strong>Donald Trump\u2019s nephew, Fred Trump III, about his uncle: Fred, whose son William has intellectual and developmental disabilities, reported that the elder Trump said during his first presidential term that people like William should \u201cjust die.\u201d<\/p>\n That is shocking\u2014but it\u2019s not surprising. The comment falls into a pattern of eugenicist and ableist views that Trump has espoused all the way back to the 1980s, when he spoke openly about the importance of having \u201cthe right genes\u201d in an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show<\/em>.<\/p>\n The opposition\u2019s failure to address and confront Trump\u2019s eugenicist views, the American studies scholar Susan Currell wrote<\/a> in a 2019 article, \u201cshows that a wide-ranging eugenic ideology is embedded in the broader American body politic.\u201d The lack of emphasis on Trump\u2019s comments and record around disability and genetics bears that out. Trump makes a lot of outrageous statements\u2014but there\u2019s a pattern to his comments about intelligence (or lack thereof), his intense hostility towards disabled people (including reputed public use of the r-word stretching back decades), and his preoccupation with \u201cgood\u201d genes: it\u2019s inseparable from his constant promotion of Afrikaner and Northern European immigration, sympathy to claims of \u201cwhite genocide,\u201d and promotion of close advisors like Stephen Miller and Elon Musk.<\/p>\n Taken together, that track record illustrates the sitting president\u2019s eugenicist mindset\u2014one that comes into sharp focus in the timeline below.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n