Victim-centered ideology has been embedded within courts, training judges in trauma theory and providing the left with a weapon against its political enemies.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives remain robust because the left has deeply institutionalized them across government programs, grant systems, training regimes, and professional language. Even when the label changes, the ideology persists.
One of President Donald Trump’s first actions in his second term was an executive order directing the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to eliminate illegal diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. The order placed immediate pressure on organizations that built their funding models around DEI and what they call “victim-centered” ideology.
Democrats have already embraced the brainwashing narrative, suggesting that if they win the midterms, many will attempt to turn it into impeachment campaigns and legal warfare.
These organizations are now resisting by filing lawsuits, mobilizing allies, and defending their grants. A federal court order has complicated the fight by requiring the government to continue funding some groups while litigation proceeds. In other words, taxpayers remain providing financial support to entities openly hostile to the president and his movement.
The Civil Rights Division should treat this doctrine as what it is: DEI with prosecutorial power.
The “victim-centered approach” functions as a federally funded prosecution doctrine. It carries judicial authority but relies on the same power-differential framework that drove DEI through human resources departments, universities, and activist nonprofits. It substitutes subjective harm for objective evidence and presents ideological assumptions as neutral expertise.
Nearly 12,000 American judges have been trained in this doctrine since 1999. The training does not focus on law but rather on trauma theory, “power and control” wheels, trauma bonding, and coercive-control frameworks imported from activist social work and repackaged as forensic science.
Judges who complete the program describe themselves as “trauma-informed” members of a new generation of jurists who understand what victims are experiencing — even when some of those alleged victims insist they were not victimized.
This is ideological preconditioning, not legal education. And the federal government has funded it for 25 years.
One major proponent is Freedom Network USA, an organization that trains law enforcement and certifies victim advocates nationwide. It has sued the Trump administration, arguing that the executive order prevents it from delivering trafficking-victim services because the order restricts words central to its curriculum.
Americans have already seen DEI in schools and hiring programs for public safety and aviation. The victim-centered approach shows DEI wearing a badge and sitting on the bench.
The left built this machinery specifically for use against communities it has labeled dangerous, irrational, or cult-like. And the left has made clear that it regards MAGA as a cult and Trump as its leader.
How do we know? Because they told us.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and a former impeachment manager, publicly stated he consulted cult experts to help communicate with Republican colleagues. Hillary Clinton suggested that MAGA supporters may require “formal deprogramming of the cult members.”
These were not stray comments but previews.
Freedom Network USA is one node in a federally funded network of nongovernmental organizations that train law enforcement, write curriculum, and certify judges. These groups are not merely observers of the doctrine; they are its infrastructure. The same political coalition that labeled MAGA a cult built the legal machinery to act on that belief. Now it is suing the administration to keep the money flowing.
The public can already see how this victim-centered approach may play out in court. The government has relied on “cult expert” Steven Hassan, author of “The Cult of Trump,” to help shape prosecution theories. The Oversight Project has documented Hassan’s ties to Raskin, whom Trump has called on Congress to expel.
Real victims of horrible crimes deserve care and respect from the justice system. That is not in dispute. But this doctrine does not strengthen judicial decency. It undermines it by weakening protections that should apply to all parties.
The victim-centered approach represents what MAGA will face should the left regain power. Conservatives will be cast either as brainwashers or as the brainwashed.
Cassidy Hutchinson’s memoir about her time as a Trump White House staffer makes a specific psychological claim: Loyalty to Trump becomes coercion. Personal devotion becomes proof that a person cannot leave freely. Under the victim-centered approach, and with criminal precedents already in place, that claim no longer remains a social critique. It can become a theory of prosecution.
Democrats have already parroted this brainwashing narrative. If they win the midterms, many will attempt to turn it into impeachment-palooza and legal warfare. That makes it time to take unserious arguments seriously.
They are telling us what they think of MAGA. They see a web of cults and subcults led by pastors, celebrities, politicians, and activists, all supposedly brainwashing followers to obey Trump.
They will try to draw a web of influence and use the victim-centered approach to build a brainwashing case against Trump and his supporters.
How do we know? Because they told us.
Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project, wrote this analysis.
