Yesterday, a nine-member jury (six men and three women) in Manhattan, New York, decided in favor of E. Jean Carroll in her two lawsuits alleging former U.S. President Donald Trump raped her in the mid-1990s and later defamed her. The jury did not go so far as to decide Mr. Trump raped Ms. Carroll, but that he “sexually abused” her. The jury concluded that Trump had to pay Carroll a series of damages totaling $5 million.
The jury had been shown a video tape taken of Trump before his presidential campaign in 2015-16, called “the Access Hollywood tape,” in which he made disgusting remarks about how he treats women. This tape had been shown on national television for the first time about a month before the 2016 presidential election, which Trump won to become president.
Donald Trump chose to not attend this Manhattan trial. But he had done a deposition back in November in which he was shown the Access Hollywood tape. Ms. Carroll’s lead attorney, Roberta Kaplan, then questioned Trump about his remarks on that tape. Here is how that exchange went between Kaplan and Trump in the deposition:
KAPLAN: In this video, ‘I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss, I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the [genitals], you can do anything.’ That’s what you said, correct?
TRUMP: Well, historically that’s true with stars.
KAPLAN: It’s true of stars that they can grab them by the [genitals]?
TRUMP: Well, If you look at the last million years, that’s been largely true. Not always, but largely true. Unfortunately or fortunately.
KAPLAN: You consider yourself to be a star?
TRUMP: I think you can say that, yeah.
This exchange in the deposition had been taped as well. Since the trial concluded last Friday, and then the jury deliberated only three hours this Tuesday before making its determination, the trial judge had released that portion of the taped deposition to the public last Friday, and it was immediately shown on national television.
When viewers have seen this tape, many have thought, what an odd thing for Trump to say, “fortunately,” about famous stars grabbing women by the genitals. Trump’s previous word, “unfortunately,” is understandable, it being what most people would say. That is, they think it is unfortunate for men to treat women like that, with such disrespect. Now, he did say, “they let you do it;” but, of course, that is his opinion, which likely is not true of most women. But why did Trump then add the word “fortunately”? I think I know. Yet, I’ve not seen this discussed much in the media.
When Donald Trump began his first campaign for the U.S. presidency, in 2015, I started posting about it on my blog. By the time he exited the White House, on January 20, 2021, I had posted hundreds of times about Trump as president. I often compared his statements with opposing wisdom literature in the Bible. I was alarmed at what I perceived as Trump’s advocacy for authoritarianism and thus his apparent disbelief in our nation’s democratic system. Plus, as an evangelical Christian, I was disgusted with his huge electoral support among evangelicals. I then put together 200 of these posts and published them as a book entitled Bible Predicts Trump Fall.
One of my criticisms of Trump in these posts, and thus in the book, was that I often alleged that he was a classic narcissist and therefore a somewhat mentally sick man. In one post, I quote 25 self-descriptive sayings of Trump, in which he often says something like, “No one knows” this or that “more than I do,” and compare it to some biblical proverb or wisdom saying of Jesus.
Moreover, for several years I’ve been writing a book about Noah’s flood in which I translate bene ha-elohim in the Hebrew text of Genesis 6.1 and v. 4 as “sons of the gods,” therefore not as traditionally translated, which is “the sons of God.” In this, I follow Jewish-Christian scholar Meredith G. Kline–a long-time professor of the Jewish Bible (Old Testament) at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia–in interpreting those bene ha-elohim as pagan, “tyrant kings” who had harems and conducted human breeding to establish subsequent kingdoms as their legacies. And as Meredith does, I allege that is how human civilization became so corrupted that God decided to destroy it with a flood save Noah and his family.
In my Trump book, I relate what his first wife, Ivana, said of him in an interview that was published as a magazine article while they were married. Ivana said Donald didn’t read books much, but he kept a copy of one book in the drawer of the nightstand beside their bed–Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Hitler and his Nazi Party had strong beliefs about eugenics and other such things.
So, I believe Trump’s word “fortunately” in that deposition was a reference to belief in some form of eugenics or the like. Trump has said he believes he is a “stable genius” suggesting his progeny would benefit society much like eugenics would. That is what I think was his mindset in saying “fortunately” in the deposition.
The following treatment of eugenics is an excerpt from another of my yet unpublished book manuscripts:
Defining Eugenics
The idea of changing, and thereby improving, human physiology is nothing new. For a long time, scientists and philosophers contemplated the improvement of the human species by various social, biological, and other scientific means. They usually attributed the best and the worst features of human beings to individual heredity.
The Greek philosopher Plato, in his book The Republic, wrote about his teacher, Socrates, having a conversation with a man named Glaucon about breeding animals for the purpose of producing their best traits in their offspring. Plato relates unapologetically that Socrates concluded in this discussion, “The best men must have intercourse with the best women as frequently as possible, and the opposite is true of the very inferior.”[1]
Modern eugenics was the biological science of improving the human species by controlled breeding. It came into vogue in the latter half of the nineteenth century and especially in the first half of the twentieth century. The First International Eugenics Congress was held in London in 1912. It was presided over by Charles Darwin’s son—Major Leonard Darwin. Winston Churchill and Thomas Edison attended it. Succeeding congresses were held in 1921 and 1932 and then no more. We will soon see why.
Eugenics was a social theory that advocated the hereditary improvement of intelligence and physical health in human beings. The primary means first proposed for achieving this ideal was by selective breeding that had been done with animals for millennia. Other means were suggested and tried in years following, such as birth control, in-vitro fertilization, prenatal testing and screening, and genetic engineering.
The Beginning of Eugenics
The founder of eugenics was Great Britain’s Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911). He was the half-cousin of the famous biologist Charles Darwin. During the second half of the nineteenth century, Galton systemized eugenics. He based it on the theory of evolution as set forth by Darwin in his first and bestselling book, The Origin of Species (1859).
Galton correctly observed that past societies generally sought to protect the physically and mentally impaired. He alleged that this protection thwarted Darwinian natural selection, resulting in what he called a “reversion towards mediocrity” in society. Galton detested the acceptability of humans as “average.” He contended that “genius” and “talent” were hereditary traits that were more prominent in certain families so that these family traits should be exploited to the utmost for the benefit of society.
Galton concluded that “artificial selection” should be employed in all societies to proliferate traits of genius and talent in the entire human species. He explained, “as it is easy, . . . to obtain by careful selection a permanent breed of dogs or horses gifted with peculiar powers of running, or of doing anything else, so it would be quite practicable to produce a highly-gifted race of men by judicious marriages during several consecutive generations.”[2]
Galton called this concept “eugenics.” He meant by it “what is termed in Greek eugenes, namely, good in stock, hereditarily endowed with noble qualities.”[3] Galton did not advocate any particular method of selection to implement his concept called eugenics. He merely envisioned that it would happen voluntarily in society.
Darwin had written a trilogy of books on evolutionary theory that included The Descent of Man (1871) and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). Using Darwin’s latter book, Galton extended his racist concept of eugenics by surmising that facial expressions indicate good or bad traits, which latter should be eliminated.
Some Institutional History of Eugenics
Eugenics was soon practiced in the USA. State governments began promoting and practicing eugenics by instituting social policies and legislation advocating it. In 1907 to 1932, thirty-two states passed eugenics laws allowing governmental sterilization of people deemed “insane” or otherwise unable to make intelligent decisions regarding their own reproductivity. From 1890 to 1924, the U.S. federal government forcibly sterilized 64,000 Americans, mostly minorities.
The foremost example of the practice of eugenics was exercised by the Nazi Party in Germany in the 1930s and early 1940s. Nazis believed German society was contaminated with degenerate people and that they needed to be exterminated to restore the purity of what Nazis believed was their own, superior, Aryan race. In 1933, six months after Adolf Hitler became chancellor, Germany passed its first eugenics law, called the Prevention of Hereditarily-Diseased Offspring. Germany then implemented forced sterilization of all adults whom it deemed intellectually or physically deficient. In 1939, the Nazi German government began a widespread program of euthanizing mentally disabled and physically deformed children. Biologist Ruth Hubbard informs,
“Nazi eugenic policies were not the creations of ignorant, evil politicians. The German eugenics program was constructed and implemented by physicians, scientists, who were professors at major universities, heads of departments, writers of established textbooks, research institutes. They were joined by legal experts, also at the top of their profession. What distinguished Germany from Britain or the US was that the political climate under the Nazis made it possible to put together and implement programs that could not be put forward elsewhere.”[4]
The WWII Holocaust changed all of this. During the post-war Nuremburg Trials, Nazi defendants argued their eugenics concept to justify the Holocaust. Thus, during the latter half of the twentieth century, eugenics came under severe criticism, especially due to these types of abuses. Other examples of such state-instituted abuses included selective immigration, banning interracial marriage, mandatory marriage counseling for family planning, forced sterilization, forced abortion, and euthanasia and genocide.
Eugenics has had its strong critics. They have been mostly sociologists, moralists, religionists, and theologians. They have argued that eugenics is unethical, if not immoral. Many of these authorities have labeled eugenics “racist” and “a pseudoscience.” They have alleged that eugenics programs sometimes began with noble intentions, but they inevitably digressed to unethical abuses. China’s One Child Forced Abortion Policy was similar to eugenics. The difference was it was enacted only to prevent overpopulation.
Not surprisingly, many eugenicists have been secularists. Surprisingly, however, during the twentieth century the U.S., the most religious nation in the world, was the second leading proponent of eugenics. Germany, of course, was the first.
Some critics of eugenics have argued that many physically impaired people have contributed substantially to the betterment of society. For instance, if Galton would have had his way, society would not have benefited from such people as classical musician Ludwig van Beethoven (deaf in later life), author and activist Helen Keller (deaf and blind), U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (polio victim), modern musicians Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder (blind), or the preeminent physicist, but now deceased, Stephen Hawking (wheelchair-bound with a speech synthesizer).
[1] Plato, The Republic, 459e.
[2] Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into Its Laws and Consequences (London: Macmillan, 1869), 1.
[3] Francis Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development (London: Macmillan, 1883), 17n1.
[4] http://alphahistory.com/nazigermany/nazi-eugenics/. Accessed November 15, 2014.
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