85 Comments
User's avatar
Lawrence Musser's avatar

Behavior more and more like that of a Trapped RAT ‼️

Expand full comment
Jeff Lazar's avatar

Brilliant analysis. Thank you so much.

Expand full comment
Kelvin Hobbs's avatar

This analysis model was published by Freyd, J.J. (1997) in Violations of power, adaptive blindness, and betrayal trauma theory. Feminism & Psychology, 7, 22-32. See, also, “What is DARVO?” by Jennifer J. Freyd, PhD, Professor Emerit of Psychology, University of Oregon, quoted below https://www.jjfreyd.com/darvo

“DARVO refers to a reaction perpetrators of wrong doing, particularly sexual offenders, may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior. DARVO stands for "Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender." The perpetrator or offender may Deny the behavior, Attack the individual doing the confronting, and Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender such that the perpetrator assumes the victim role and turns the true victim -- or the whistle blower -- into an alleged offender. This occurs, for instance, when an actually guilty perpetrator assumes the role of "falsely accused" and attacks the accuser's credibility and blames the accuser of being the perpetrator of a false accusation.”

Expand full comment
PleaseMakeItStopPlease's avatar

When are they just gonna take him out? He’s proven his guilt, he’s defied court orders, he’s done so many deadly things that need congressional approval (as per law) without getting congressional approval and he’s proven that the cheese has slid off of his cracker! Isn’t it time that this little experiment in Nazi-ism be put in the history books?!

Expand full comment
Dik de Bruijn's avatar

"They" are never going to take him out, if by "they" you mean Congress. I do love the expression his "cheese has slid off of his cracker." That's brilliant!

Expand full comment
PleaseMakeItStopPlease's avatar

I do have hope that once democrats win the House and Senate that they will start to reel in executive powers and make trump get approval for things that need approval for but non-MAGA republicans really do need to grow a set instead of Kamikazee-ing their own party into oblivion

Expand full comment
Ellen L Wright's avatar

Then make those REPUBLICAN senators and Congress find their spines and locate the balls of the SCOTUS.

Expand full comment
Sirin Kaslana's avatar

What balls?

Expand full comment
Ellen L Wright's avatar

The ones that would enable them to follow the law for a change.

Expand full comment
Sirin Kaslana's avatar

Those don't exist, Trump castrated them all

Expand full comment
Elizabeth Romedy's avatar

Thanks for this information. We need to TRUMP PROOF these United States of America!

💙🦅💙

Expand full comment
Jodie Gualco's avatar

Written impeccably

Expand full comment
Kelvin Hobbs's avatar

What is Darvo: Donald Trump’s very specific form of manipulation 2-Feb-24 https://digbysblog.net/2024/02/02/what-is-darvo/ (edited based on this 1-Feb-24 article in The Guardian, https://tinyurl.com/murnarhn)

We know about Trump’s psychotic behavior. He is a malignant, narcissistic, pathological liar. Trump is not only a malignant narcissist, he’s got the mind of a 13 year old boy. He’s pathetic. But he employs a specific manipulative strategy that actually has a name. But I didn’t know that there is a very specific diagnosis. 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.

[W]ith 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.

Expand full comment
Sara Mogil's avatar

Michael your articles are written so well it feels like I’m reading fiction. Then I smack myself, say “oh shit this stuff is true”.

Expand full comment
Vivian Fletcher's avatar

Could he just unravel more quickly...into a psychotic state, please!

Expand full comment
Janice Nelson's avatar

Micheal Cohen is an exceptional writer.

Expand full comment
edgarallanbrown's avatar

Hey, why is Lev Parnas pissed at y'all at MTN? Sez he's got an exposé coming?

Expand full comment
JA's avatar

Dropped Lev & Co. today because of his rants and irrational comments and behavior! Not pleasant to listen to or observe! He is ranting about you, Michael, too!

Expand full comment
Joanne Gatsis's avatar

What? I guess I missed this news! 🫢

Expand full comment
Ellen L Wright's avatar

Didn’t hear about t this but you do know that he worked for Trump and Rudy and has been trying to keep his spot in the limelight. The problem for him is that his 15 minutes has expired. You can only tell his tales so many times.

Expand full comment
MaryBees's avatar

Great writing Michael

Expand full comment
Patricia McKeown's avatar

This is a first rate dissection of what is happening.

Expand full comment
Susan Friend's avatar

The Epstein scandal isn't going away. What is, I hope, is the demented rapist felon. And he's even crazier than usual, which is saying something. Crossing my fingers that he dies soon.

Expand full comment
Publia's avatar

I'm hoping he gets so pushed by the issue that he has a coronary or a stroke. It's bad to wish evil on anyone, I know, but we need some form of deliverance, and since the cabinet lacks the integrity to invoke the 25th, we have to resort to other means. I'm hoping a Big Mac or Bucket o' Chicken will do its patriotic duty, and soon.

Expand full comment
Anna Bifano's avatar

Dear Michael - I so appreciate your Insight and analysis of the dangerous game DT and his regime is playing. Defying the law, creating distractions and playing with fire. This whole charade is selfishly cruel to the survivors. I have to believe that liar and chief will lose this charade. Anna in AZ. Home of Senator Mark Kelly!

Expand full comment
Coop's avatar

Who, with such a toxic, tarnished, filthy, disgusting background, and with all that could potentially be uncovered, decide to enter public life?

If I had a few hundred skeletons stacked deep in every closet and under every bed, THE LAST THING I would consider would be to run for office.

Elbow Zupp! 🇨🇦

Expand full comment
Publia's avatar

I think his vanity outweighed his fear of exposure. Or perhaps he felt he would be powerful enough to thwart exposure. He shouldn't have made the release of the Epstein files one of his main campaign promises if he wanted to avoid exposure. He thought there'd be dirt on Democrats there, or at least he wanted to imply to his cult that there was. Karma.

Expand full comment
John giannattasio's avatar

One of the worst perverts to ever serve the American people in history.

Expand full comment