Trump's Trope of The Enemy Within Is Projection

Donald Trump has a tell. When he says someone else is corrupt, disloyal, lawless, or dangerous, he’s often describing his own conduct—and the conduct he encourages in his movement. Psychologists call it projection: attributing to others the impulses we can’t acknowledge in ourselves. In politics, projection is more than a personality tic. It’s a strategy that inverts reality, floods the zone with accusation, and numbs the public to genuine threats.

Start with the basic democratic test: can you lose an election and accept it? Trump failed that test decisively. He spread baseless claims of fraud, pressured state officials to “find” votes, tried to weaponize the Justice Department, and stood by as a mob stormed the Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power. Since then, he and many allies have valorized those actions, promising “retribution” and floating pardons for those convicted in the attack. Yet they routinely brand critics “traitors,” call the press “the enemy,” and label lawful investigations “election interference.” That’s projection: accuse others of the very subversion you are attempting.

Consider institutions. Trump claims to defend law and order while degrading the rule of law—attacking judges, prosecutors, and jurors when cases don’t go his way. He insists he alone can fix the system while promising to purge civil servants and bend independent agencies to personal loyalty tests. He rails against censorship while seeking to punish companies and media that challenge him. He warns of authoritarianism while openly flirting with it: praising strongmen, promising to use the state against opponents, and normalizing political violence with winks and nods. The charge he levels—“they’re destroying America”—maps neatly onto his own blueprint.

Projection works because it preloads the public square with fog. If everyone is labeled corrupt, no one’s corruption stands out. If every election is called rigged, real safeguards look suspicious. If every institution is declared biased, the only trustworthy referee becomes the leader himself. That’s the “enemy within”: not some shadowy fifth column, but a mindset that corrodes shared reality from the inside and licenses any tactic so long as it serves the leader’s aims.

There’s a media ecosystem built to sustain this. Outrage outlets repeat the script: invert the facts, flood the feeds, declare victory. When courts rule against Trump, the rulings are proof the courts are crooked. When allies face consequences, it’s proof the “deep state” is hunting patriots. When violence happens in Trump’s name, it’s instantly reframed as a false flag—or justified as understandable anger. In that hall of mirrors, accountability is persecution and impunity is freedom.

The danger isn’t abstract. Election workers across the country received threats after 2020. Local officials were doxxed. Members of Congress and judges required extra security. Poll workers are quitting. This is how democracies decay: not only through a single dramatic coup, but through constant intimidation that pushes decent people out of public life until only the most fanatic remain.

Trump’s appeal, of course, taps real grievances: economic dislocation, community decline, cultural whiplash. But grievance is being converted into permission—permission to deny losses, to delegitimize opponents, to excuse lawlessness when “our side” does it. A healthy movement demands more from its leaders than applause lines and vendettas. A patriotic movement accepts referees, tolerates scrutiny, and can imagine being out of power without destroying the field.

Some will object: calling Trump and his followers “the enemy within” is itself dangerous rhetoric. Fair point—language can escalate. But the answer isn’t to pretend symmetry where none exists. The core issue is conduct: who accepts constitutional limits, who respects neutral rules, who condemns political violence without hedging? We should judge any faction—left, right, or center—by those standards. On that test, Trump and much of his movement are failing, while projecting their failures onto everyone else.

The exit ramp isn’t mysterious:

- Tell the truth about elections, even when it hurts your side.

- Protect the referees: local officials, judges, journalists, and nonpartisan civil servants.

- Reject political violence and those who wink at it.

- Reward leaders who can lose with grace—and punish those who can’t.

- Diversify your information diet; if a source never admits error, it’s probably selling you certainty, not truth.

Democracy doesn’t require saints. It requires enough of us, enough of the time, to put rules over rulers and reality over rhetoric. Projection is powerful because it flatters supporters and confuses the rest of us. But it only works if we accept the mirror it hands us. We don’t have to.

The enemy within isn’t our neighbor with a different yard sign. It’s the authoritarian impulse dressed up as populism, the habit of accusing others of the very sabotage being plotted. Call it out, hold the line, and keep the faith with the imperfect, stubborn, essential work of self-government.