Manufactured Confusion: Gaslighting as a Tool of Power in the Trump Administration
How lies, distortion, and denial are being weaponized to dismantle truth, undermine institutions, and consolidate authoritarian power.
By the Center for Racial and Disability Justice
In the tumultuous years of Donald Trump’s political reign, one theme persists like a drumbeat: gaslighting. From his earliest days on the campaign trail to his 2025 return to executive power, Trump and his administration have engaged in a relentless campaign to manipulate public perception, distort reality, and sow division. These tactics are not merely rhetorical; they are calculated strategies that undermine democratic institutions, disorient the public, and consolidate authoritarian control.
A History of Gaslighting in American Politics
While Trump popularized the term “fake news,” its roots stretch deep into American history. In the 1800s, newspapers often printed outright fabrications for profit, such as the 1835 “Great Moon Hoax” published by The New York Sun. By the late 19th century, yellow journalism weaponized sensationalism to influence public opinion and stoke conflict, including the Spanish-American War. These publications blurred the lines between fact and fiction, manipulating readers for both economic and political gain.
The 20th century saw the emergence of state-driven disinformation as a political tool. Nazi Germany’s Joseph Goebbels and the USSR’s propaganda ministries institutionalized the manipulation of truth, not just to support regime narratives, but to obliterate dissent. The term Lügenpresse — “lying press” — was used by Nazis to delegitimize critical media, a tactic echoed decades later in Trump’s repeated declarations that critical outlets were the “enemy of the people.” During the Cold War, disinformation campaigns flourished globally, from CIA-backed psychological operations to Soviet-era “active measures.” These efforts weren’t just about lying; they were about constructing an alternate reality.
Trump’s Revival of the “Fake News” Doctrine
Trump’s revival of the term “fake news” marked a dangerous shift in political discourse: rather than describing misinformation, he used it to discredit accurate reporting. In doing so, he borrowed directly from fascist regimes’ playbooks, where truth was whatever the leader declared. Repetition of lies, denial of observable reality, and constant blame-shifting became central features of his communication style.
Whether it was falsely asserting that his inauguration crowd was the largest in history, or repeatedly declaring the 2020 election “stolen” despite over 60 failed court challenges and no evidence of widespread fraud, Trump used falsehoods to construct a political reality untethered from facts. The strategy destabilizes public trust not just in individual issues, but in the very concept of truth. Once people no longer know what to believe, they become more susceptible to manipulation — and more easily controlled.
Elon Musk, DOGE & Manufactured Efficiency
As head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk has pushed sweeping agency cuts while presenting them as anti-fraud and pro-efficiency measures. These reforms include targeting Social Security, climate research, and disability services. In televised interviews and social media posts, Musk claims that waste and fraud are rampant, citing unverified anecdotes and unverifiable data.
Critics argue that Musk’s framing intentionally misleads the public by masking ideological attacks as technocratic fixes. His business interests — ranging from space contracts to transportation projects tied to federal infrastructure — create a dangerous blend of public authority and private enrichment. The use of populist rhetoric to disguise corporate self-dealing is a classic form of gaslighting: it reframes exploitation as innovation.
Linda McMahon’s “Elegant” Dismantling of Education
Appointed as Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon has spearheaded the push to dismantle the Department of Education entirely, echoing long-held conservative goals to defund or eliminate federal involvement in public education. Her testimony before Congress emphasized “returning power to parents,” “cutting red tape,” and “reducing government overreach” — all phrases with surface appeal that obscure the dismantling of protections for marginalized students.
Civil rights advocates warn that these cuts will severely undermine federal enforcement of disability rights, Title IX protections, and racial equity in public schools. The administration’s language of “empowering local control” obscures the disproportionate impacts these changes will have on students with disabilities, LGBTQ+ students, and students of color. Critics have labeled this approach “elegant gaslighting”: a sophisticated rhetorical strategy that masks oppression as reform.
RFK Jr. Gaslighting Public Health
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., long known for promoting vaccine misinformation, now oversees the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). His “Make America Healthy Again” campaign centers on alternative health practices, deregulation, and personal responsibility. It promotes natural supplements, detox treatments, and unregulated therapies while downplaying the importance of vaccines, public health funding, and structural health determinants.
This narrative not only undermines scientific consensus but gaslights the public into believing that chronic illness, disability, and disease are purely individual failings. It erases the structural causes of health inequities — environmental racism, lack of access to care, poverty — and replaces them with victim-blaming. By doing so, it weakens the very systems needed to protect the public from pandemics and health crises.
Targeting Marginalized Communities
The administration’s attacks on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) initiatives, alongside its targeting of LGBTQ+ — especially transgender — communities, are deeply rooted in gaslighting. Anti-DEIA measures are often framed as restoring merit or “fairness,” when in fact they dismantle civil rights protections. Trans people are particularly demonized under the pretense of protecting children or preserving fairness in sports, while policies banning gender-affirming care and public visibility are falsely marketed as “neutral.”
These actions erase lived experiences, deny systemic inequality, and present oppressive policies as moral or even liberatory. This is political gaslighting: redefining hate as safety, and erasing oppression by claiming it doesn’t exist.
Attacking Researchers, Universities & Public Data
The Trump administration has intensified scrutiny and funding cuts to universities, research, and public data infrastructure. These efforts are framed as eliminating bias, promoting neutrality, or reducing waste. In reality, they function to silence dissent, destroy knowledge production, and erase inconvenient truths — particularly around race, gender, climate, and health.
By defunding DEIA programs, targeting public health and social science research, and restricting demographic data collection, the administration gaslights the public into believing that data is partisan and expertise is suspect. These actions disorient the public and consolidate narrative control by dismantling the very tools that expose inequity and demand accountability.
Undermining the Legal System & Judicial Independence
The Trump administration’s actions toward lawyers, judges, and the broader legal system represent another critical axis of gaslighting. Judges who rule against the administration are labeled as corrupt or partisan, while legal institutions are portrayed as enemies of the people.
By framing legal accountability as political persecution and law enforcement as personal loyalty, the administration erodes judicial independence. Threats against judges, manipulation of the Department of Justice (DOJ), and public denigration of prosecutors delegitimize the legal process. This gaslighting tactic transforms fair legal processes into perceived witch hunts, deepening mistrust in the very institutions meant to uphold the rule of law.
Coordinated Gaslighting Across Agencies
Trump’s 2025 administration has extended this strategy across the entire federal government:
- Historical Revisionism: Trump’s executive orders aimed at reshaping library and museum content and public education present a whitewashed, sanitized version of American history.
- Suppression of Free Speech: ICE has been ordered to surveil pro-Palestinian student protesters, creating a chilling effect on academic freedom.
- Climate Censorship: Mentions of climate change have been purged from federal websites. Funding for renewable energy research has been redirected or frozen.
The Consequences: Erosion, Polarization & Disempowerment
These tactics — across health, education, environment, civil liberties, and the legal system — have a cumulative impact. They disorient the public by:
- Eroding Trust: When the media, scientific community, judiciary, and educational institutions are all portrayed as untrustworthy, citizens are left without reliable anchors for truth.
- Deepening Polarization: Gaslighting weaponizes identity — framing critics as enemies, outsiders, or traitors. This creates a climate of fear, surveillance, and groupthink.
- Disempowering the Public: When people are bombarded with contradictory information, or told their suffering is their own fault, they become less likely to organize or resist. Apathy and resignation follow.
Gaslighting is not just a communications problem — it is a governance strategy. It replaces transparency with confusion, accountability with conspiracy, and solidarity with suspicion.
Final Thoughts
The Trump administration’s use of gaslighting — old in its lineage, new in its reach — should alarm anyone concerned with truth, justice, or democracy. The actions of officials like Elon Musk, Linda McMahon, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and others are not isolated eccentricities; they are part of a coordinated campaign to unmake public institutions while convincing the public they are being saved.
As history teaches us, unchecked manipulation of reality can pave the way for authoritarianism. The antidote lies in truth-telling, transparency, solidarity, and collective defense of our shared reality. In this moment, refusing to be gaslit is not just a personal act of clarity — it is a political act of resistance.
The Northwestern Pritzker Law Center for Racial and Disability Justice (CRDJ) is a first-of-its-kind center dedicated to promoting justice for people of color, people with disabilities, and individuals at the intersection of race and disability.
Learn more about CRDJ by visiting the Center for Racial and Disability Justice webpage.
