Deny, attack, reverse – Trump has perfected the art of inverted victimhood
Time after time, with predictable regularity, never missing a beat, Donald Trump proclaims his innocence. He always denies that he has done anything wrong. The charge does not matter. He is blameless. But this is only the beginning of the pattern. Then, he attacks his accusers, or anyone involved in bringing him to account, usually of committing the identical offense of which he stands accused.
But it is not enough for him to lash out. Then, he declares himself to be the victim. Whatever it is, he is falsely accused. But his self-dramatization as the wounded sufferer is only half his story: he insists that whoever has accused him is in fact the offender. He emerges triumphant, the martyr, the truth-teller, courageously unmasking the real villain. J’accuse!
Trump’s pattern is textbook manipulation – literally. It has a precise name given to it after decades of academic research. Jennifer Freyd, now professor emerita of psychology at the University of Oregon, developed the theory over her career studying sexual assault, trauma and institutional betrayal. She named the process by which the perpetrator seeks to avoid accountability Darvo – a strategy with the elements of denial, attack, and reversal of victim and offender.
“I named the idea in the 1990s,” Freyd told me. “People can deny an accusation without resorting to Darvo. Why not just say, ‘I’m disturbed by what you’re saying, it doesn’t comport with what I remember, these are important issues, I want to understand.’ You can stick to a firm denial without being a victim. But the viciousness of the attack is intended to be silencing.”
Freyd observes: “The people who use Darvo are different from the people who don’t … It’s a red flag.”
Trump’s behavior in the E Jean Carroll case has been a classic exhibit.
The defamation case was brought after Trump said she was “totally lying”, explaining that “she’s not my type”, about her description of his sexual assault of her in a book and a New York magazine article. He issued a formal statement from the White House on 19 July 2019: “If anyone has information that the Democratic Party is working with Ms Carroll or New York magazine, please notify us as soon as possible. The world should know what’s really going on. It is a disgrace, and people should pay dearly for such false accusations.”
All the elements of Darvo, his familiar pattern, were present in his deflection. He denied the incident occurred: “I’ve never met this person in my life.” He attacked her: “Shame on those who make up false stories of assault to try to get publicity for themselves or sell a book or carry out a political agenda.” And he turned the tables to make himself the victim and her the aggressor deserving of punishment: “People should pay dearly for such false accusations.”
In the first defamation trial in 2023, Judge Lewis Kaplan declared that based on the jury’s deliberations Trump had defamed her and committed rape. “… Mr Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape’,” he stated. “Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr Trump in fact did exactly that.”
The jury awarded Carroll $5m. Trump appeared on CNN the day after the judgment to call the decision “fake news” and her a “whack job”. She amended her defamation lawsuit.
During the second trial, Trump inevitably repeated this pattern. First, he denied the accusation. “She said that I did something to her that never took place,” he testified in a deposition. “There was no anything.” Then, he attacked her: “I know nothing about this nutjob.” Then, he made himself her victim: “She’s accusing me of rape, a woman that I have no idea who she is.” Then, he called her “sick, mentally sick” and labeled her attorney Roberta Kaplan “a political operative”. They had connived for ulterior motives to hurt him.
Then, he lied about an interview she had given, to claim that – even if he never knew her and the event never took place – she said she enjoyed being sexually assaulted by him. “She actually indicated that she loved it. Okay? She loved it until commercial break,” Trump said. “In fact, I think she said it was sexy, didn’t she? She said it was very sexy to be raped. Didn’t she say that?”
In the second defamation trial, the jury delivered a judgment of $83.3m in damages against Trump.
There’s a method to Trump’s madness. The madness is the method – and the method is the madness. It’s more than his malignant narcissism. It’s more than his relentless lying. Conscious or unconscious, it is his invariable reflexive response to the danger of being held responsible for his misdeeds and crimes. Its roots lie in the model of his brutish father. Upon that foundation he added the vicious counsel of Roy Cohn to attack anyone suing him in order to raise the personal cost for his victims, drain them of resources and delay the courts.
But Trump’s instinctive reliance on Darvo goes beyond the mean-spirited tactics he learned from Cohn. Those lessons settled long ago into his pathology, becoming something more pervasive, systematic and fundamental, defining Trump’s behavior in every area of his life. The pattern is written all over Trump’s rap sheet of adjudicated and alleged sexual violence. Dozens of women have come forward by name to accuse him of assault and rape. His malicious insults of women are legion.
He responds to all of his accusers using the Darvo playbook. “Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign,” he said in 2016. “Total fabrication. The events never happened. Never. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.” Again, he was the victim, they were the aggressors. He threatened them in order to silence them.
Though Trump ranks among the greatest living specimens of misogyny, his Darvo blame-casting extends to foes of any gender in every one of his conflicts. Trump’s syndrome has become the core of his politics. Just as he is the Maga icon, even exalted as a god, his derangement is the golden calf for his followers. They worship by imitation. His gaslighting about his sexual violence has morphed into the essence of his pseudo-ideology of a debauched party.
The Trump Republicans, apologizing for him, twist their arguments into the Darvo template. In the Republican-dominated House of Representatives, the weaponization committee has institutionalized a warped Darvo construct in its projections on the cave wall of conspiracies and enemies. One day, the FBI is the culprit victimizing Trump; the next, Taylor Swift.
In case after case, Trump applies the blueprint. His closing statement at his New York fraud trial on 12 January was definitive in his application of the complete features of Darvo. He raced back and forth from denial, to attack, to reversal of victim and offender. “This is a political witch-hunt that was set aside by – should be set aside. We should receive damages for what we’ve gone through, for what they’ve taken this company through.” He was the victim.
The one bringing the case, Letitia James, the New York attorney general, was the assailant. “We have a situation where I’m an innocent man,” Trump said. “I’ve been persecuted by somebody running for office … they want to make sure that I don’t win again, that this is partially election interference. But, in particular, the person in the room right now hates Trump and uses Trump to get elected.”
Trump, on trial for financial fraud, flipped the narrative. “This is no fraud. This is a fraud on me.” Then, he baited Judge Arthur Engoron. “I know this is boring you.”
“One minute, Mr Trump,” said the judge.
“You can’t listen for more than one minute,” Trump shot back. “This has been a persecution of somebody that’s done a good job in New York.”
“Please control your client,” the judge told Trump’s lawyer.
“Your Honor, look, I did nothing wrong,” said Trump. “They should pay me for what we had to go through.”
Trump’s harangue in the Manhattan courtroom was just the latest variation on his themes. After the FBI seized boxes of classified documents, including national security secrets, that Trump took to Mar-a-Lago, for which he has been charged with 41 felonies, Trump let loose on 8 August 2022 with a vehement Darvo defense. His “beautiful home” was “under siege” from “FBI agents”, in “an attack from Radical Left Democrats”.
Never describing the reason for the seizure of documents, he literally spelled out his technique of sleight-ofhand reversal. “What is the difference between this and Watergate, where operatives broke into the Democrat National Committee? Here, in reverse, Democrats broke into the home of the 45th President of the United States.”
This outrage, according to Trump, was the culmination of his mistreatment – at least until the next one. “The political persecution of President Donald J Trump has been going on for years,” he said, speaking of himself in the third person, “with the now fully debunked Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, Impeachment Hoax No 1, Impeachment
Hoax No 2, and so much more, it just never ends. It is political targeting at the highest level!” Then, he attacked Hillary Clinton. “Absolutely nothing has happened to hold her accountable.”
Trump’s language in his Darvo screed about the documents he had secreted at Mar-a-Lago was a replica of his most historic speech. In his rant on 6 January 2021 to the assembled mob ready to march on the Capitol, he presented himself as the victim in almost exactly the same words.
“All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats, which is what they’re doing. And stolen by the fake news media … You don’t concede when there’s theft involved … We will stop the steal.”
He turned Mike Pence, his vicepresident, into an enemy, mentioning his name seven times. The gallows were already being constructed in front of the Capitol, yet Trump and his mob were the ones being intimidated and silenced. “We will not let them silence your voices.” The media was “the enemy of the people”.
In the midst of his recital of the “pure theft” of the election, he managed to find a way to insert a graceless note of misogyny, exactly as he would after the Mar-a-Lago seizure, a non sequitur explicable by the perverse logic of Darvo. “And the only unhappy person in the United States, single most unhappy, is Hillary Clinton.” Then, he told the mob to go “fight” at the Capitol.
“Darvo works,” Freyd told me. “There are two ways it works. One is on the victim, who is attacked. Darvo leads to self-blame, which leads to self-silencing. It’s effective in that it increases power over the victim. The other way is that it damages the credibility of the victim. When we introduce Darvo into the experiment, for the participant who doesn’t know about it, blame is reduced on the perpetrator. Darvo hurts the victim more. It tarnishes more the person who is the target of Darvo.”
But Freyd also says that her research shows that when people are made aware of the nature of Darvo beforehand, it has a diminished effect. “The one hope is that when they know about it, they are less susceptible to it as a defense.” She concludes: “It would make a difference to identify the strategy and call it out. Normalizing Darvo is colluding and harmful.”
Trump’s campaign themes largely consist of his defenses, which are adaptations of Darvo. He denies all the accusations. A majority of Republicans believe he is falsely charged. He attacks a host of enemies from E Jean Carroll to Jack Smith, from the judges to their clerks. He is the victim. They are the offenders. Darvo is his shield of innocence.
“Are you thinking of trying to use campaign funds to pay some of the penalties?” a reporter asked Trump after it was disclosed that he had spent $50m in donor money on lawyers’ fees in 2023.
“What penalties?” Trump answered. “In the New York fraud case and the defamation case.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Trump said. “I mean, that’s been proven as far as I’m concerned.”
Sidney Blumenthal is a Guardian US columnist. He is a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth
Though Trump ranks among the greatest living specimens of misogyny, his blamecasting extends to foes of any gender in every one of his conflicts
but also lifelong prison sentences.
As a result, dozens of women from across the country have come forward with stories of being denied medically necessary abortions. Now, Kelly, like the women in Texas, is one of them: earlier this year, she joined a lawsuit in Tennessee that was filed by multiple women who say they were turned away from abortions they desperately needed.
After Roe fell, Tennessee rushed to implement what was believed to be one of the strictest abortion bans in the country. Lawmakers have since carved out extremely narrow exceptions in the law – but advocates say they are nowhere near enough to ensure doctors can provide what is often lifesaving care.
‘I was trying to make a compassionate decision for my baby’
Kelly’s fetus was diagnosed with trisomy 13, a chromosomal disorder that can result in a range of grave issues, according to Kelly’s lawsuit. The fetus had large growths on the neck and back, as well as elevated swelling in the tissues and organs.
The fetus also had a condition, associated with trisomy 13, that had led the brain to fail to split correctly, Kelly said: “That’s associated with really severe complications, like facial deformities, like only having one eye and really terrible things like that.”
Many fetuses diagnosed with trisomy 13 do not make it to birth; if they are born, the infants need extensive medical care and still likely only live for hours or days.
If Kelly had continued the pregnancy, the fetus could have started experiencing pain, according to the lawsuit. Kelly faced the risk of developing medical complications herself, too, such as preeclampsia, a riskyblood pressure condition.
But Tennessee bans almost all abortions after conception. Under the state’s ban, Kelly’s doctor and genetic counselor told her, Kelly could not get an abortion in Tennessee, according to her lawsuit.
“I felt confused and stressed about where to go and what to do when I wasn’t allowed to get the healthcare I needed in Tennessee,” Kelly said. “Just, the whole thing was drawn out even longer than it needed to be because I was trying to figure out where to go and I was trying to make a compassionate decision for my baby.”
She considered getting an abortion in Illinois, a state that has become an abortion haven since Roe’s downfall; she made and cancelled appointments. She didn’t feel right going somewhere she had never been for such a personal procedure. “I was seeking any comfort I could possibly grab onto,” she said.
Finally, Kelly was able to get an appointment at a Florida hospital, with an OB-GYN she knew and trusted. But going to Florida came with its own challenges.
Kelly realized she was running out of time: Florida bans abortions past 15 weeks of pregnancy, and she was coming up against that limit. In addition, patients in Florida must visit an abortion provider in person for counseling, wait 24 hours, and return for the procedure itself.
Kelly and her husband also had to make the 10-hour-plus trek to northwest Florida with their toddler in tow. Just remembering that drive, Kelly said, gives her goosebumps. “It’s hard for me to put myself back in that state of mind sometimes, because it was so traumatic for me that I think my brain is trying to protect itself and forget,” she said. “I don’t remember what I did. I just went forward.”
Kelly and her husbandsaved money by staying at a friend’s place, but the whole trip set the couple back “at least several thousands of dollars”, Kelly estimated. “It was a lot more stressful and confusing than it would have been had we been able to just stay in Tennessee.”
At the hospital, Kelly cried before she slipped under anesthesia. The nurses held her hand.
“They were really compassionate and kind,” Kelly said, her voice choking up with tears. “That was the hardest part – just not wanting to go through with it or be there but knowing it had to be done, and then having someone just tell me it was gonna be OK. They made me feel comfortable.”
By the time of her abortion, on 31 March 2023, Kelly was roughly 15 weeks pregnant, according to her lawsuit – just about the legal limit in Florida. But abortion laws in Florida may soon shift again: the Florida state supreme court is weighing a case that may lead to a six-week abortion ban, which would outlaw the procedure before many people know they’re pregnant.
After her procedure, Kelly reached out to Allie Phillips, a Tennessee mom who went public on social media with her experience of having to travel out of state for an abortion. Phillips, who is now running for a seat in the Tennessee state legislature, was one of the first women to sue Tennessee over the exceptions in its abortion ban – months later, Kelly decided to join the lawsuit.
Seven women who say they were denied abortions in Tennessee, including Kelly and Phillips, are a part of the lawsuit. One ended up traveling to Virginia for an abortion, and was later diagnosed with sepsis due to an infection that, her doctors said, had gotten worse because her abortion had been delayed. Another woman learned that her pregnancy was unlikely to result in a healthy baby, but had to continue it against her will. She delivered a stillborn son 31 weeks into her pregnancy.“I hope that it makes a difference. I feel like I’m proud to be a part of it, although it’s something I never wanted to be a part of,” Kelly said. “I just hope that I can make a difference for women’s rights.” A hearing in the case is set for April. In April 2023, Tennessee’s Republican governor signed into law a bill that slightly expanded abortion providers’ legal protections. Under the original version of the law, all abortions had technically been felonies – but doctors who performed them could claim in court that the abortions had been performed to save a patient’s life or prevent a serious injury. Under the new law, doctors could use their “reasonable medical judgment” to perform abortions in severe emergencies, a standard that abortion-rights advocates say still opens doctors up to prosecution.
Lawyers for the women, who are being represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, are asking the courts to issue a temporary injunction that would allow doctors instead to use their “good faith medical judgment” to perform abortions when a patient has a “critical or emergent physical medical condition” that threatens their health, future fertility or life.
The Texas lawsuit, meanwhile, is under deliberation bythe state supreme court. A similar case, filed in Idaho last year, continues.
Kelly is pregnant again. She’s due in June 2024.
The fear of something happening to this pregnancy and, in particular, the fear of being pregnant again in Tennessee – lingers. Kelly didn’t buy any new baby outfits, or tell her son about the pregnancy, until after testing confirmed her fetus had no medical issues.
“We did not start trying until my previous baby’s due date had passed. I wasn’t mentally or physically ready,” she said. “We actually ended up conceiving this baby the weekend of our former baby’s due date. Things just felt right.”