U.S. mishandling of COVID echoes the 20th century eugenics movement
By Knute Berger,
Crosscut
| 12. 01. 2020
Over the past nine months, I have written about some of the parallels between the 1918-20 influenza pandemic and today’s coronavirus outbreak: opposition to masks, premature elimination of social distancing, increased skepticism about public health, school closures and presidents who made the epidemic a low priority but also caught, and survived, the bug itself.
In the latter case, President Woodrow Wilson, who fell ill in 1919 during treaty talks, was distracted by fighting the first all-out world war. President Donald Trump, on the other hand, became sick after ignoring the advice of his health officials while campaigning for reelection. Trump has long boasted about his health and his smarts. He was hospitalized, given advanced treatments for COVID-19 and, when released, adopted a strongman posture. He and many of his followers believe in their own supremacy — their ability to survive as the fittest of Americans by virtue of their beliefs and their race. White supremacy is, after all, a genetic argument.
Trump has more in common with the prior influenza era: He’s well-known for bragging about his genes. He...
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Following a long-standing CGS tradition, we present a selection of our favorite Biopolitical Times posts of the past year.
In 2025, we published up to four posts every month, written by 12 authors (staff, consultants and allies), some in collaboration and one simply credited to CGS.
These titles are presented in chronological order, except for three In Memoriam notices, which follow. Many more posts that are worth your time can be found in the archive. Scroll down and “VIEW...
