A Domestic-Violence Risk Assessment of President Trump’s America

This article borrows the structure and plain language of domestic and family violence (DFV) risk assessment as a metaphorical lens for political power. It does not borrow the suffering. Intimate-partner violence is fear, coercion, degradation and danger lived in bodies and households, disproportionately borne by women and children, and it demands its own seriousness.

But DFV practitioners have built something that the rest of public life often lacks – a way of naming patterns that polite society keeps excusing. Risk frameworks are designed to cut through charm, plausible deniability and the false comfort of “he didn’t mean it”. They are engineered for the moment when a victim says, “It’s complicated”, and a worker has to decide whether “complicated” is code for imminent catastrophe.

So here is the premise – What if we treated Donald Trump’s behaviour – as he governs now – as if it were the behaviour of an intimate partner? And what if the “victim” were American democracy – its institutions, its public servants, its journalists, its minorities, its future? What would a formal risk tool say?

Why this is not a MARAM assessment

This piece is written from Victoria, Australia, where the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management Framework (MARAM) is the legislated system for assessing and responding to family violence. MARAM is sophisticated, context-driven and built for multi-agency professional judgement. It is not designed as a public “scorecard”, and the questionnaire itself is distributed directly to prescribed organisations rather than published as a simple checklist.

For transparency – and because this is an article, not a case file – I use a public tool from another Australian jurisdiction – the New South Wales Domestic Violence Safety Assessment Tool (DVSAT). DVSAT is a blunt instrument by design. It asks a sequence of yes/no questions about violence, coercive control and escalation. Its thresholds are deliberately stark – one or more “yes” responses means the victim is “at threat,” twelve or more “yes” responses indicates “at serious threat.’’

The form is not magic. It cannot predict the future. It cannot replace judgement. What it can do is this – force us to ask, question by question, whether the behaviours we have been trained to tolerate in politics are the same behaviours we would never minimise in a living room.

Presenting complaint

Picture a small office at a crisis service in December 2025. The fluorescent light is too bright. The coffee is cold. The worker has heard the same story in a hundred different accents and a thousand small variations of shame.

The client is American democracy.

“He says he loves me,” she begins. “Says he alone can fix me. Says everyone else has lied to me – the judges, the journalists, the experts, even my own officials. And then he turns parts of my own body against me. He uses the army and the police as if they’re his fists. He goes after my friends. He names people. He points. Things happen after he points.

“I left him once. I did it the proper way – votes, counts, certification. He denied the separation. He tried to force his way back in. A mob turned up at my front door. I left anyway, for a while. Now he’s back in the house – and he keeps saying this time he’ll really take control.”

The worker does not argue with her. She reaches into the drawer and pulls out the form that sits between a client and catastrophe.

Part A – Ticking the boxes

DVSAT begins with questions so plain they feel almost rude. That is the point. Abuse thrives in euphemism. Crisis work does not have that luxury. What follows paraphrases the DVSAT questions and applies them – metaphorically, but rigorously – to the current President of the United States.

Direct violence and threats

1. Has he threatened to kill the victim or anyone else?

In a domestic-violence file, “threats to kill” are not metaphors. They are the reddest of red flags –the kind of line that triggers urgent escalation because the worker’s job is to keep a person alive long enough to have choices.

Donald Trump’s threats are rarely delivered as “I will kill you”. They are delivered as something that, in politics, has been treated as normal – vengeance described as justice, opponents recast as enemies, punishment promised as virtue. When he tells a crowd, “I am your retribution,” he is speaking the language of domination.

And domination has already been operationalised. After the 2020 election, he pursued a multi-part effort to overturn the result and remain in power. That effort culminated in the violence of January 6. In 2025, litigation in Newsom v. Trump has centred on the federalisation and domestic deployment of the California National Guard in response to protests tied to immigration enforcement. In DFV work, willingness to mobilise force – whether by one’s own hand or by proxy – is the relevant fact. It is the difference between “harsh words” and a credible threat.

Answer – Yes.

2. Has he used physical violence against the victim?

On January 6, 2021, a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol to halt the certification of the election and the peaceful transfer of power. People were assaulted. Police were beaten. The building was breached. The constitutional process was interrupted.

Trump did not personally throw the punches. That does not place him in the “non-violent” category. Abuse has always had subcontractors. The January 6 Committee’s final report documents Trump’s efforts to summon, inflame and direct the crowd – and his refusal, for hours, to use his authority to stop the assault once it began. The federal indictment in United States v. Trump lays out the alleged scheme that preceded it.

In DFV logic, violence by proxy is often the prelude to something worse – a perpetrator learning that they can hurt you without ever being the one seen on CCTV.

Answer – Yes.

3. Has he choked or tried to choke the victim?

In DFV cases, strangulation is terrifying not only for what it is, but for what it predicts – a perpetrator putting their hands on the mechanism of breath. The victim lives after the first time, and the perpetrator learns how close they can get to ending the story.

Democracy’s “breath” is consent – counted votes, certified outcomes, peaceful transfer. After the 2020 election, Trump pressured officials and institutions to falsify that breath – to “find” votes, to discard lawful ballots, to substitute fake electors, to pressure the Vice President to block certification. The federal indictment describes the core of that alleged strategy. This is coercive control aimed at the body of democracy – not “disagreement”, but attempted asphyxiation of legitimacy.

Answer – Yes.

4. Has he assaulted the victim with a weapon?

For most victims, “weapon” means a knife in a kitchen drawer or a gun in a bedside table. In this case, the “weapon” is state force – armed agencies, troops, detention facilities – power that can be pointed.

The details matter. In 2025, a federal judge in Newsom v. Trump ruled that aspects of Trump’s federalisation and deployment of the California National Guard were unlawful, and ordered limits on the domestic use of troops. Whatever one believes about immigration policy, the existence of litigation – and a federal court’s willingness to restrain the deployment – confirms the fact pattern – the state’s coercive apparatus has been turned inward against domestic dissent.

Answer – Yes.

5. Has he harmed or threatened to harm something the victim loves (such as pets)?

Abusers do not always begin by striking the victim. Sometimes they begin by striking what the victim loves, because the point is the message – I can reach anything you care about.

In Trump’s America, the “pets” are people and principles that democracy is meant to protect –children at the border, immigrants, those who rely on stable rules rather than personal favour. The family-separation policy of the first Trump administration – implemented through the “zero tolerance” approach and resulting in children being separated from parents at the border – is documented in inspector-general reporting. In DFV terms, harming children to control adults is a method of coercion.

Answer – Yes.

6. Has he been apprehended, charged, convicted, or been subject to intervention orders?

In DV work, a protective order is a signal of a pattern serious enough to trigger formal intervention. So are criminal charges, civil findings and prior court involvement. They do not guarantee safety. They are evidence that safety has already been breached.

Trump is the only U.S. president to have been criminally convicted. He was impeached twice. He has faced multiple criminal indictments and civil judgments. A civil jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation, and appellate courts have upheld that judgment. In a DFV file, “justice system contact” is a risk factor because it can produce grievance, humiliation and escalation – especially when the perpetrator frames accountability as persecution.

Answer – Yes.

Coercive control and escalation

7. Is he jealous and controlling?

Jealousy in DFV is possession. It is the insistence that the victim may not have other sources of affirmation, truth or support.

Trump’s relationship with independent information has long been adversarial. In 2025, that adversarial posture has been formalised. The White House has launched an official “Media Bias” section – a “Media Offenders” tracker – inviting the public to consume politics as denunciation and to treat journalism as a punishable act. A democracy deprived of shared facts is easier to isolate, easier to gaslight, easier to control.

Answer – Yes.

8. Is his behaviour getting worse or more frequent?

Escalation is the heartbeat of risk. Many perpetrators do not begin at maximum intensity. They test limits. They retreat. They return harder. Each time they learn what will be tolerated.

Compare phases. In 2020-2021, pressure campaigns around vote counting and certification culminated in the January 6 attack. The federal indictment in United States v. Trump describes the alleged scheme that preceded it. In 2025, federal courts were asked to restrain the domestic deployment of troops and the federalisation of state National Guard units. The tactics evolve, but the direction does not – toward fewer constraints, greater personalisation of power, and a narrowing circle of who is permitted to speak without consequence.

Answer – Yes.

9. Does he stalk or harass the victim or people around her?

In an intimate-partner case, stalking can mean hundreds of messages, surprise appearances, a car outside the house at 3 a.m. In politics, stalking can be broadcast – a name said at a rally, a target marked in a post, a private citizen turned into a national enemy.

The January 6 Committee documented how Trump and his allies focused attention on election workers, including Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, and how that attention translated into harassment and threats. When the most powerful office in the country points at a person, the threat does not remain metaphorical.

Answer – Yes.

10. Does he control access to money and resources?

Economic abuse is often the invisible cage – sabotaged jobs, seized wages, debts run up in someone else’s name. It teaches the victim that autonomy is unaffordable.

In politics, the analogue is the use – or threatened use – of state resources as a loyalty test. Executive Order 13768 sought to condition federal funding on cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, aiming at so-called “sanctuary jurisdictions”. Courts ultimately limited parts of that effort, but the pattern matters – resources framed not as public goods, but as leverage.

Answer – Yes.

11. Has there been a recent separation, or is separation imminent?

Leaving is the most dangerous time in a DV relationship. Separation is a trigger. Many perpetrators escalate when they realise they are losing control.

Democracy “left” Trump in 2020. He responded with denial and litigation, and with a pressure campaign aimed at overturning the result. That campaign ended in violence at the seat of government. He returned to office in January 2025. The return does not erase the prior attempt to prevent departure. In DFV work, a perpetrator who has already tried to block the exit is treated as high risk when the victim is forced back under the same roof.

Answer – Yes.

After eleven questions, the running tally in this metaphor is eleven “yes” answers. DVSAT’s “serious threat” threshold is twelve.mWe are one tick away – and we have not yet considered background factors, weapon access, children, or sexual violence.

Background and context

12. Are there financial difficulties or grievances?

Some perpetrators are fueled by grievance. They feel cheated. They feel mocked. They feel entitled to take back what they imagine the world stole. Grievance is often the accelerant that makes harm more likely.

Trump’s public persona is grievance as ideology – enemies everywhere, betrayal as proof, resentment as policy. His private life has also been shaped by legal jeopardy – criminal conviction, civil judgments, and extensive litigation. In risk work, grievance plus power is not a stable mixture.

Answer – Yes.

13. Is the partner unemployed?

No. He is employed as President of the United States.

In an ordinary risk tool, unemployment can heighten volatility by adding stress and humiliation. Here, employment multiplies capacity. The “partner” in this scenario has access to agencies, budgets, intelligence, armed force. The job itself is a risk factor.

Answer – No (but capacity is higher because the job multiplies his reach).

14. Does he have mental health problems?

DVSAT permits “unknown”, and ethical practice forbids diagnosis from afar. What can be observed, however, is behaviour – grandiosity, inability to accept limits, habitual externalisation of blame, and escalating retaliatory talk when challenged.

Answer – Unknown.

15. Substance abuse – alcohol or drugs?

Trump is not widely known as a drinker or a drug user. On the form, this remains “no”.

Answer – No.

16. Threats or attempts at suicide?

Trump’s ultimatums are directed outward – emotional blackmail aimed at the victim and the public – but not self-directed.

Answer – No.

17. Is he on bail or parole, or recently imprisoned for violence?

He has not been imprisoned for violent offences. But he has been criminally convicted, and his legal entanglements have not prevented him from regaining power. In risk practice, a perpetrator who treats accountability as a nuisance and returns with greater authority is not treated as safer.

Answer – No (formal), but justice contact is significant.

18. Does he have access to firearms or other weapons?

This is the easiest item on the form. As president, Trump sits at the apex of institutions with lawful lethal force. In 2025, courts have had to consider the limits of that force in domestic deployment. The question is how willing he is to use it.

Answer – Yes.

Even if we counted only the clearest “yes” answers in this section (grievance and weapon access), we have now crossed the DVSAT threshold for “serious threat”. The checklist is not finished.

Children at risk

Here, the “children” in democracy’s household are literal and structural – actual young people, and the parts of the polity that are more vulnerable because they lack power, status or protection.

19. Are there very young children present, or is the victim pregnant?

Democracy is always “pregnant” with the next generation. The question is whether the environment is safe for what is growing.

Answer – Yes.

20. Has he used violence toward the victim during pregnancy?

When a perpetrator harms the victim while she is pregnant, they harm not only the present but the future. In politics, that looks like decisions and disinformation campaigns whose costs will be carried forward by children – democratic norms corroded, institutions hollowed, climate and public-health crises treated as branding problems.

Answer – Yes.

21. Has he harmed or threatened to harm children?

The harms are not hypothetical. Inspector-general reporting has documented the trauma inflicted on children through family separation and chaotic detention practices at the border. Children are also harmed when public power legitimises cruelty toward minorities and teaches young people that belonging is conditional.

Answer – Yes.

22. Is there conflict over the children’s contact or residency?

Custody battles in DFV are about control – who gets to shape the child’s life, who gets to define the story, who gets to keep the other parent afraid.

In the United States, fierce battles over schools, libraries, curricula, reproductive autonomy and gender have become proxies for who controls the future. Trump’s political project does not simply participate in those conflicts. It amplifies them.

Answer – Yes.

23. Are there children from previous relationships?

Democracy has pre-existing commitments – to treaty allies, to constitutional minorities, to human-rights frameworks built over decades. The question is whether the current “partner” respects those commitments or treats them as annoying stepchildren.

Answer – Yes.

Sexual violence history

24. Has he sexually abused, assaulted or degraded the victim?

Trump’s history includes numerous allegations of sexual misconduct. One of those allegations has been tested in court – a civil jury found him liable for sexual abuse of writer E. Jean Carroll and for defaming her, and that judgment has been upheld on appeal. In DFV risk work, a substantiated sexual-violence history is a major risk factor.

Answer – Yes.

25. Has he been arrested or charged for sexual assault?

He has not been criminally charged or convicted of sexual assault.

Answer – No (but the civil finding is highly significant).

Part A – The score

On this metaphorical application of DVSAT, the checklist yields nineteen “yes” answers (out of twenty-five). DVSAT’s own guidance treats twelve or more “yes” responses as “at serious threat”.

Some of these answers are literal (January 6, court-tested allegations of election interference, litigation over domestic troop deployments), others are interpretive (what counts as “children” in a polity). But even if you dispute the mapping at the margins, the centre of the pattern remains –coercive control, escalation, and a demonstrated willingness to use force when constrained.

Part B – Professional judgement

DVSAT has a second component – the part where the worker stops ticking boxes and writes sentences.

Fear level

DVSAT asks how afraid the victim is – not afraid, afraid, terrified, or unable to say.

A democracy is not a person, and “fear” is hard to measure at a national scale. But the proxy signals are everywhere – the normalisation of political violence, the need for security around election workers, the denigration of judges and journalists as enemies, the litigation over troop deployments in American cities, the steady erosion of any shared agreement about what is true.

If democracy walked into a crisis service describing that atmosphere, no responsible worker would tick “not afraid”.

Fear level – Terrified.

What she thinks he will do

Victims of abuse are often disturbingly accurate forecasters of their abuser’s next move, because they have already been trained by the pattern. In democracy’s voice, the fears might sound like this –

To institutions – He will treat checks and balances as opponents to be beaten. He will push against subpoenas, courts and oversight, he will attempt to personalise agencies, he will exploit any doctrine that expands presidential immunity or shrinks accountability.

To critics and truth-tellers – He will continue to punish speech by turning attention into a weapon – naming people, inviting harassment, using state power and official platforms to chill dissent.6

To vulnerable groups – He will deepen the targeting of those who are easiest to scapegoat – migrants, racial minorities, religious minorities – because cruelty is politically useful when it binds a base.

These are not prophecies. They are extrapolations from the record.

Extra risk factors

Part B also captures factors the checklist cannot fully express.

The perpetrator in this metaphor is the president of the United States. Capacity is the difference between a threat and a catastrophe. In 2025, courts have had to weigh the limits of domestic troop deployments. The White House has built official infrastructure to delegitimise independent reporting. And a man who has already attempted to block the peaceful transfer of power has returned to the office that controls the most coercive machinery in American life.

A skilled perpetrator in a household isolates a victim from friends, tells her she is crazy, convinces her that no one else will believe her, and then tests the outer limit of what he can do without consequences. In public life, the tools are different. The logic is recognisable.

Final threat level and what should happen next

DVSAT allows the worker to set a final threat level based on Part A and/or Part B. In this metaphor, there is no honest way to tick anything other than:

Threat level – At serious threat.

In an actual DFV case, that box triggers urgent safety planning – support networks, legal options, escape routes, strategies to reduce the perpetrator’s access and capacity. It triggers the hardest professional obligation – to speak plainly when the victim has been trained to doubt herself.

Applied to Trump’s America, the implication is that a democracy should stop minimising. A risk assessment is a warning. In DFV work, warnings are written in the hope that someone reads them early enough to act – to defend institutions before they are hollowed, to protect the vulnerable before cruelty becomes routine, to insist that accountability is not “revenge” but the minimum condition of safety.

The form ends, but the story does not. The question, as always, is whether the victim believes she is allowed to leave – and whether the rest of us will help her do it safely.

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