A new paper published in the European Journal of Cultural Studies introduces a provocative concept for understanding how far-right movements justify violence, oppression, and exclusion—not by claiming harm already done, but by invoking hypothetical injuries that could happen. The paper, authored by Kathryn Claire Higgins of Goldsmiths, University of London, names this strategic move “victimcould,” and uses Donald Trump’s political trajectory as a case study.
Higgins argues that Trump has not just weathered criminal charges and political scandal—he has repurposed them into proof of his own victimhood. But this isn’t traditional victimhood based on real or present injuries. Instead, Trump positions himself as perpetually on the brink of harm, casting himself as a target of state overreach and moral persecution.
This, Higgins claims, is victimcould in action: a rhetorical strategy that moves public attention away from current injustices and redirects it toward imagined futures. In doing so, far-right figures can appear vulnerable while simultaneously reinforcing policies that harm those who are actually marginalized.
The motivation behind Higgins’ paper is to shed light on how modern far-right political movements, especially in the United States, have found cultural legitimacy through emotional narratives. These stories often sidestep present realities and instead rely on speculative storytelling. Higgins believes that a critical gap in scholarship remains around how far-right actors manufacture hypothetical futures that feel just real enough to shape political action today.
This is where “victimcould” comes in. Unlike conventional victimhood, which is rooted in visible harm or past trauma, victimcould is based on the mere possibility of future injury. It functions in two ways. First, it is a “representational achievement”—a media-based performance that encourages people to imagine a victimized future self or group. Second, it acts as a “justificatory logic”—a reasoning process that makes it seem morally acceptable to enact aggressive or harmful policies in the present because of what might happen otherwise.
To illustrate this idea, Higgins turns to a notable moment in American media culture: the viral spread of AI-generated images depicting Donald Trump’s hypothetical arrest. These images, created and shared online in March 2023—months before Trump was actually indicted—showed a dramatic scene of Trump being tackled and handcuffed by police officers. Although clearly labeled as fake and satirical, the images gained massive attention and became an unlikely flashpoint in the battle over Trump’s public image.
For people who oppose Trump, the AI-generated images of his imagined arrest offered a kind of emotional release—a fantasy that he might finally be held accountable for his actions. But for his supporters, the same images were seen as a warning: a glimpse of what a politically motivated government could do to someone who challenges the system. Trump himself leaned into this interpretation. Just a few days later, he shared another AI image that showed him kneeling in prayer, styled to make him look like a martyr—someone being unfairly persecuted.
According to Higgins, these images, and the public conversation around them, are clear examples of what she calls “victimcould.” This term describes how imagined future harms—things that haven’t happened but could—are used to build emotionally powerful stories in the present. These stories allow political figures like Trump to present themselves as victims, even when they haven’t actually been harmed. In doing so, they borrow the emotional and cultural weight of real experiences of victimization, but remove them from the historical and political realities that give those experiences meaning.
This strategy affects how power is understood and represented. Higgins points out that in the U.S., the criminal justice system has long disproportionately punished people who are poor or belong to racial minority groups, while offering protection and leniency to wealthy, white men. When Trump and his supporters claim he is being victimized by the legal system, they flip this reality on its head. They draw on the imagery and emotional language of racial justice movements like Black Lives Matter, but twist it to suggest that it’s people like Trump who are truly being oppressed—ignoring the deep inequalities those movements are trying to bring to light.
Higgins argues that this amounts to a larger cultural reversal. Systems that actually cause harm are presented as necessary for safety. People in positions of great power are portrayed as under attack. Privileged individuals are painted as the ones who are suffering. Far-right policies—such as harsh immigration rules, anti-trans laws, or cuts to public services—are framed not as acts of control or exclusion, but as necessary responses to looming threats. This type of messaging is hard to argue against because it’s based on imagined futures, not current facts. If the harm is always just about to happen, there’s no way to prove that it won’t.
Higgins emphasizes that victimcould thrives in a media ecosystem flooded with emotionally charged content and speculative storytelling. Generative AI, deepfakes, and viral social media posts all provide new tools for dramatizing imaginary futures. But the deeper issue, she says, is not the technology itself—it’s the cultural willingness to treat possibility as reality when it serves a political agenda.
This imaginative strategy also bypasses traditional fact-checking or debate. When narratives are based on what “could” happen, they are harder to challenge with evidence. This is part of their power: victimcould evades scrutiny by moving the stakes of the argument into an always-pending future. It doesn’t ask people to believe in a lie; it asks them to feel threatened by a possibility.
There are important limitations to Higgins’ argument, which she acknowledges. Her analysis focuses on symbolic and cultural representations, not on empirical studies of public opinion or media effects. The paper is also primarily theoretical, with Trump’s case serving as an illustrative rather than exhaustive example. Future research could explore how victimcould functions in other far-right movements, or how different audiences interpret and respond to these types of narratives. Investigating the role of media literacy, trust, and identity in the reception of hypothetical injuries would also be valuable.
The study, “From victimhood to victimcould: Hypothetical injury and the ‘criminalization’ of Donald Trump,” was published July 2, 2025.