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Most people have heard by now that Steve Bannon is a believer in genetic superiority. Well, as long as your genes are nice and white. That’s not good news, given his hand is well up Trump’s backside. Compounding the bad news is that Trump is also convinced that genetic superiority is a for real thing, and naturally, he thinks he has said superiority, why he’s just bursting with scientific racism! Oh, I mean genetic superiority. Naturally, all the white supremacists, nazis or otherwise, are brimming with happiness over this news. These don’t even qualify as dog whistles to the white supremacists, more like disaster sirens, because the rhetoric is very plain, there’s little to no attempt to mask it, or wrap it up in flowery bullshit.

Trump has repeatedly connected his success to his “good genes,” as ThinkProgress previously reported. He’s said that his children “don’t need adversity” to build character or skills, because they share his good genetics. In an interview once, he went so far as to compare himself to a “racehorse” and discussing his “breeding” at length.

The belief in the genetic predisposition of qualities like intelligence are a hallmark of white nationalism.

That’s nothing to do with “good genes”. It does have everything to do with being born with a whole set of silver spoons, along with being fed a gross sense of entitlement, especially when much of that came from a wealthy father who was a known bigot. It’s not difficult to see this pattern was repeated with Trump’s own children. Money! Gold! Money, Money, Money! You own the world, babies! If Trump was bursting with this mythical genetic goodness, we might expect to see something like intelligence, and a lifetime spent in cultivating thought, along with how to think, which is something you do have to learn. Instead, Trump swallowed his sense of entitlement whole, where it continued to swell beyond measure, and has spent a lifetime perpetrating fraud, conning people, and occasionally taking time out to assault women, because of course, he and his super genes own all of them, too. But he did inherit all that money, that counts, right? Trump has also gone on, at length, about the importance of breeding. Makes a person wonder why he divorced the first race horse, oh, I meant wife. I guess once she bred, her usefulness was over.

As for his children not needing adversity to build character or skills, all I can say is that money is no substitute. No parent wants their children to meet undue adversity, but it is rather important to learn how to deal with disappointment, a lack of instant gratification, and the like. That simply makes for a better person. When you’re wandering about with the attitude that you can do whatever you want, and get whatever you want when you want it, there isn’t much room for character. I was unaware that lots of good genes makes learning skills unnecessary. Now piles of money, yes, that does rather cancel out the need for skills. Cancels out an ongoing connection with others too, and learning empathy and compassion. But, genes! Really good genes!

Edited to add: If you’d like an interesting insight into how this particular method of child-rearing worked, PZ has a post up at Pharyngula about Ivanka Trump’s recollection of their childhood fleecing of servants and playmates.

There are so many things to worry about, and this is yet another one. No matter how much “scientific” racism is debunked, there are too many people who hold onto it with a death grip, anything in order to justify a sense of superiority, who will cheer this on, and pour support into any policy which may reinforce this notion. Given the amount of white supremacists now poised for power, this is profoundly troubling.

Full story here.