“It’s a very scary time for young men in America when you can be guilty of something you may not be guilty of. This is a very difficult time,” President Donald Trump said at a rally recently. “In this realm, you’re truly guilty until proven innocent. That’s one of the very, very bad things that’s taking place right now.”

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No, Mr. President, it is not a very scary time for young men and false claims are so miniscule that it is a non-issue. Once again, Trump has used the tool of taking the status as a “victim” from actual victims and is using it as a tactic to appeal to his base and get what he wants; he is using fear to turn people against the #MeToo movement.

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The past month has been a battle between the two sides of Congress, generally divided between the parties. On one side we had Judge Brett Kavanaugh who was accused of sexual assault by several women, most notably Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. On Saturday, this fight culminated in a win for President Trump and Republicans when Kavanaugh was confirmed to the highest court in the U.S., the federal Supreme Court. Throughout the whole ordeal, there were repeated cries of Kavanaugh being “persecuted” and the hearings putting him through “hell.” I have news for you: Kavanaugh is not the victim of some sort of scheme. Regardless of whether or not Kavanaugh himself actually committed the acts that he is accused of, this is a sign of a bigger issue within our country and our government.

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Rather than standing up for victims of sexual assault and other forms of violence, our president is concerned with protecting those like him: heterosexual white men. He is not interested in protecting anyone who does not fall into that narrow demographic.

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Similar tactics are being used to turn people against the Black Lives Matter movement. People screaming “All Lives Matter” have made themselves into victims when they are not victims. There is not an attack on white people and white people are not subjected to the kind of discrimination that people of color are subject to. Saying “All Lives Matter” shows that the person doesn’t have any idea of the reality of what it is like to be someone who does not fit into the “white person” mold. This same idea also applies to the “Blue Lives Matter” movement that supports law enforcement as a way to oppose the Black Lives Matter movement. Instead of looking at the victims of police brutality, these people choose to see police officers as the victims. They take the blame from the person who commits the act of violence (the officer) and put it onto the victim (the person, often a person of color, who usually ends up dead).

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Immigrants and refugees have also been turned from victims into monsters by those who wish to keep them out of our country. During his campaign, Trump used the rhetoric of the dangerous and evil Mexican to help his plan of “building a wall.” Rather than looking at people who are fleeing their home country for many reasons, such as escaping war or searching for better opportunities to support their families, Trump and his base have turned themselves into the victims.

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This tactic has also been used as a way to oppose marriage equality. Straight couples act as if their marriage is somehow threatened by non-straight couples getting married. Rather than looking at equality as being equal, equality is twisted to make it seem like any marriage that isn’t strictly gender normative is a threat to gender normative marriage.

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The concept of claiming victimhood is not new. Examples of this can be seen during the Women’s Suffrage movement 100 years ago, issues of racial equality that have gone on since before the Civil War, and so much more. For example, white people claimed that allowing people of color to drink out of the same drinking fountain as them was an attack on white people. Equality is not an attack on anyone except for the people who wield power over the oppressed.

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I could go on and on with example after example. At the end of the day, it is essential to understand the power structure of our society in order to see who the people who really need help are. Using this sort of rhetoric to scare people into defending themselves is part of how Donald Trump was elected and has been a common theme in the history of the U.S.