He feels persecuted and reviled. He’s the victim of a witch hunt.
It has been several hundred years since the European witch hunts died out, but the term is still being used and abused.
In the US, the term was used to describe the State’s persecution of communist sympathisers in the 1950s. This too was rooted in fear of someone undermining social order and taking part in a wider conspiracy. Today, on the other hand, many regard the US President Donald Trump as laying it on too thick when he claims that he’s the victim of a witch hunt led by a hostile press and the opposition.
In some parts of the world, modern witch hunts are a far more real threat – a threat that in many ways resembles that of 17th-century Europe.
Current witch hunts in India and Nigeria see women and children persecuted and accused of witchcraft. But whereas European witch trials were carried out at court, the people accused of sorcery today fall victim to mob lynchings and are subjected to violence, torture, rape and murder.