Trump & Republicans Are Enacting Structural Eugenics
It is important we understand this term, what it means for our personal safety, and why we must stand united to stop this fascism
Nebraska just became the first state to mandate work requirements for its low income residents before they can receive Medicaid — 7 months ahead of schedule.
You may not have heard the term Structural Eugenics before, but sadly we live at a time where it’s critical we know what it means and what it looks like. Because MAGA and Trump are showing us what Structural Eugenics looks like—and it is horrifying.
MAGA Republicans are enforcing destructive work requirements, tracking autism, menstrual cycles, criticism of Trump, criticism of Israel, Trans people, and anyone who even dares whisper DEI — but NOT vaccination rates, measles spread, COVID deaths, firearm proliferation, firearm deaths, bird flu cases, people killed by law enforcement, climate change, or food regulations.
This is an unholy recipe for fascism and national disaster. This will kill is already killing people—and I fear that’s the MAGA goal. Let’s Address This.
Eugenics is the discredited and racist theory that selective breeding can and should be used to improve the human race. While many see this as a fascist act of the past, as Osagie K. Obasogie, a professor of law and bioethics at UC Berkeley, points out, it has persisted in insidious ways into modern times. Today, in the United States, a troubling trend has emerged where MAGA Republicans prioritize monitoring certain social issues while neglecting critical public health concerns. This selective focus raises alarms about which lives matter. Shocking no one, the group that incessantly chants “all lives matter,” doesn’t actually believe that either. By enacting eugenicist views as a matter of public policy, MAGAs advance Structural Eugenics. Below I share examples of how the Trump regime is enacting structural eugenics in broad daylight.
How MAGAs Are Enacting Structural Eugenics
MAGA-aligned officials have concentrated efforts on:
Autism Surveillance: President Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have falsely linked vaccines to autism, despite scientific consensus debunking this claim. In recent years, this false claim has led to vaccine aversion, leading to increased death and suffering.
Menstrual Cycle Tracking: Some states have proposed or enacted policies allowing the monitoring of women's reproductive health data, raising privacy concerns. In Virginia, the Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin blocked a bill that would have banned law enforcement from seeking a woman’s menstrual history.
Banning Criticism of Political Figures: The Trump regime is disappearing and deporting Palestinian students, or any Black or brown person in general, who is critical of US foreign policy on Israel. Furthermore, Trump is set to deport U.S. citizens he doesn’t like, all while wholly denying due process of law. This is de facto authoritarian and fascist.
Criminalizing Transgender Lives: Legislation in various states targets transgender rights, including restrictions on healthcare access and participation in sports. The ACLU is tracking nearly 600 anti-LGBTQ bills in various state and federal legislatures—all designed to demonize a small minority of the country for the crime of existing.
Eliminating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Initiatives: Efforts to dismantle DEI programs in education and government institutions are underway, undermining progress toward equality. The Federal government has wholly eliminated DEI programs as part of its fascist Project 2025 agenda.
Neglected Public Health and Safety Issues
But it is not just about what MAGAs are monitoring, it is also about what they are ignoring. Thus, conversely, there is a noticeable lack of attention to pressing public health matters, which also puts our lives at risk, and in fact costs lives. For example:
Vaccination Rates: Vaccination coverage has declined, leading to outbreaks of preventable diseases like measles. At least two children have died so far. RFK has done nothing but spew vaccine disinformation, which all but ensures more death.
COVID-19 Management: Despite ongoing risks, there is diminished emphasis on COVID-19 precautions and vaccination efforts. Currently, approximately 340 Americans still die each week due to COVID.
ourworldindata.org Censoring Firearm Violence: Gun-related deaths remain a significant issue, yet comprehensive gun control measures are lacking. Absurdly, House Republicans continue to vote to ban the CDC from studying gun violence and gun deaths, even as we know that gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children in America.
Ignoring Climate Change: Despite the existential threat of climate change to all humanity, environmental policies addressing it are defunded and removed. In fact, right now Trump is contemplating an Executive Order that would remove tax exempt status from climate justice non-profit organizations.
Ending Food Safety Regulations: There is insufficient focus on ensuring the safety and nutritional quality of the food supply. And worse, Trump is signing Executive Orders to further gut food regulations.
Enforcing Work Requirements For Human Rights
Now, Nebraska has become the first state to enact work requirements for Medicaid recipients. MAGA politicians claim this will “cut waste, fraud, and abuse.” This is, of course, a lie. The “Big Beautiful Bill” mandated massive cuts to Medicaid to afford giving billionaires $2.1T in tax cuts.
The fact remains that every study and implementation of work requirements ever done shows it saves no money and instead leads to immense harm and death. In this case, The Urban Institute estimates 10 million people in America will lose their life saving Medicaid coverage by 2028.
This will kill people. And the people it will kill are disproportionately low income people, women, Black and brown people, and people with disabilities.
And the scary part is, that is the point. This is Structural Eugenics in action.
Reviving “Legalized” Structural Eugenics
Structural Eugenics is not a relic of history. And it is not something that only happened in Nazi Germany. Few remember the horrifying 1927 U.S. Supreme Court eugenics case, Buck v. Bell. In this case, SCOTUS ruled 8-1 to uphold a Virginia eugenics law targeting Black people. States nationwide then adopted this ruling and crafted their own state laws. As a result, more than 60,000 Black women, men, and children as young as 10 were forcibly sterilized—which we now recognize as a textbook definition of genocide. Perhaps just as horrifying is that as of 2026, Buck v. Bell technically remains valid Supreme Court precedent as no subsequent SCOTUS ruling has ever overturned it. Given how the Trump regime already attempted to use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to disappear brown migrants, I do not put it past him to use the 1927 Buck v. Bell ruling to justify their policies advancing Structural Eugenics.
Because for all intents and purposes, Structural Eugenics is happening again here and now. It is manifesting in the laws being passed, the data being collected, the people being tracked, the programs being gutted, and the lives being sacrificed—all while the architects of this agenda smile for cameras and invoke God and country.
Conclusion
When a government systematically monitors the bodies of women, surveils autistic children, criminalizes trans existence, disappears immigrants, and strips Medicaid from 10 million people (at least)—while simultaneously refusing to track measles deaths, gun violence, COVID casualties, or climate destruction—that government has made a very clear and very deliberate statement about which lives it values and which lives it is willing to lose. We must call this what it is, resist it with everything we have, and refuse to normalize a single moment of it. Because the alternative—silence, apathy, the slow acceptance of the unacceptable—is exactly what Structural Eugenics depends on to survive. We will not give it that. Not today. Not ever.
Continue to raise your voice, and continue to demand meaningful protections for our health and well-beings. Otherwise, none of us are safe, because all of us are next.
Qasim Rashid is a human rights attorney, author, and host of Let’s Address This — independent, people-funded media dedicated to human rights, press freedom, and the accountability that corporate media refuses to deliver. Subscribe, share, and let’s remain relentless in our mission for a more perfect Union.
Twilight zone we’re living through. Great article Qasim
Frightening. This needs to be understood and shared in order to effectively combat it.