Why Trump accuses people of wrongdoing, he himself committed projection explanation

Donald Trump uses a particular formula to convey messages to both his supporters and his opponents: he highlights the wrongdoing of others, even if he himself has committed similar acts.

On October 3, 2024, Trump accused the Biden administration of spending Federal Emergency Management Agency funds intended for disaster relief on immigrant services. Biden did no such thing, but Trump did during his time in the White House, including paying for additional detention space.

This is not the first time he has accused someone of something he did or would do in the future. In 2016, Trump criticized opponent Hillary Clinton's use of an unsecured personal email server while she was secretary of state, calling it extreme neglect of classified documents. But once elected, Trump continued to use his unsecured personal cell phone while in office. And he was criminally charged with illegally possessing classified government documents after leaving office and storing them in his bedroom, bathroom and other locations at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

After complaining about Hillary Clinton's handling of classified documents, Donald Trump stored national secrets in a toilet. Department of Justice via AP

Most recently, the Secret Service arrested a man armed with a rifle who allegedly planned to shoot Trump during a round of golf. Following that event, Trump accused Democrats of using inflammatory language that fanned the fires of political violence. Meanwhile, Trump himself has a long history of making inflammatory remarks likely to incite violence.

As a scholar of politics and psychology, I am familiar with the psychological strategies candidates use to persuade the public to support them and to portray their rivals in a negative light. This strategy that Trump has used repeatedly is called projection. It's a tactic people use to smooth over their own flaws by calling out those flaws in others.

Projection abounds

There are many examples. During his September 10, 2024 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump claimed that Democrats were responsible for the July 13 assassination attempt against him. I probably got shot in the head because of the things people said about me, he said.

Earlier in the debate, he falsely accused immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, of eating other people's pets, a statement that sparked bomb threats and prompted the city's mayor to declare the state of emergency.

Similarly, congressional investigators and federal prosecutors found that Trump's remarks called thousands of people to Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, encouraging them to violently storm the Capitol in order to stop the count electoral votes.

Trump is not the only politician to use projection. His running mate, JD Vance, said the rejection of the American family was perhaps the most pernicious and evil thing the left has done in this country. Critics were quick to point out that his own family had a history of dysfunction and substance abuse.

Projection occurs on both sides of the political aisle. In reference to Trump's proposed 10% tariffs on all imported goods, the Harris campaign launched social media efforts to condemn the so-called Trump tax on tequila. While Harris frames this proposal as a sales tax that would devastate middle-class families, she distracts from the fact that inflation has made middle-class lives more expensive since she and President Joe Biden took up their duties.

How it works

Projection is an example of unconscious psychological processes called defense mechanisms. Some people have difficulty accepting criticism or believing that information they wish is false. So they search for, and then provide, another explanation for the difference between what is happening in the world and what is happening in their minds.

Typically this is called motivated reasoning, which is an umbrella term used to describe the range of mental gymnastics that people use to reconcile their views with reality.

Some examples include seeking information that confirms their beliefs, rejecting factual claims, or creating alternative explanations. For example, a smoker might minimize or simply avoid information related to the link between smoking and lung cancer, or perhaps tell themselves that they don't smoke as much as they actually do.

Motivated reasoning is not unique to politics. This can be a difficult concept to consider because people tend to think that they are in full control of their decision-making abilities and are able to process political information objectively. It is clear, however, that there are also unconscious thought processes at work.

Influence the public

The public is also sensitive to unconscious psychological dynamics. Research has shown that over time, people's minds unconsciously attach emotions to concepts, names, or expressions. So someone might have a particular emotional reaction to the words gun control, Ron DeSantis, or tax relief.

And people's minds also unconsciously create defenses against these seemingly automatic emotions. When a person's emotions and defenses are challenged, a phenomenon called the backfire effect can occur, in which the process of controlling, correcting, or neutralizing erroneous beliefs ends up reinforcing the person's beliefs rather than modifying them.

For example, some people may find it hard to believe that the candidate they favor and consider the best person for the job actually lost an election. So they look for another explanation and accept explanations that justify their beliefs. Perhaps they choose to believe, even in the absence of evidence, that the race was rigged or that many fraudulent votes were cast. And when presented with evidence to the contrary, they insist that their opinions are correct.

Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned with Liz Cheney, right, a prominent Republican who previously served in Congress. AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein A way out

Fortunately, research shows specific ways to reduce people's reliance on these automatic psychological processes, including reiterating and providing details of objective facts and, most importantly, attempting to correct untruths via a trusted source of the same political party.

For example, it would be more effective to challenge Democrats' belief that the Trump-affiliated conservative agenda, called Project 2025, is dangerous, from a Democrat rather than a Republican.

Likewise, a response to Trump's assertion that the international community is heading toward World War III with Democrats in the White House would be stronger coming from one of Trump's Republican colleagues. And certainly, declarations that Trump can never be put in power again carry more weight coming from the mouth of former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney than from any member of the Democratic Party. .

Criticisms coming from the candidate's party are not excluded. But they are certainly unlikely given the very tense climate which characterizes the 2024 electoral period.

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