His true source of power has still not been exposed and may re-surface
By Bill Eddy / Bill Eddy’s Substack / Nov. 9, 2026
Voters Have Spoken – for Now
Last Tuesday, on November 3, 2026, the national electorate spoke and soundly rebuked the corrupt, dangerous, and uncaring reality of the Trump administration and his Republican enablers in Congress. While he had a very narrow win in the Presidential Election of 2024, Democrats had a record win in the midterms with an across-the board sweep that hasn’t been seen in 50 years. This is good.
But has Trump finally reached the end of his hidden power over America? Has the Trump bubble burst?
The Trump Bubble
In May 2016, I put out a little book titled Trump Bubbles: The Dramatic Rise and Fall of High-Conflict Politicians. In it I explained: “I define a trump bubble as occurring when emotions trump thinking in politics. When fear trumps facts. When leader love trumps logic. It could be a politician, a policy or a war. In 2016, the trump bubble is Donald J. Trump himself.”
Trump bubbles are essentially kept afloat by hot air—the false and absurd statements of the politician, their negative advocates, partisan media, and especially social media, who repeatedly promote the fantasy of this politician’s strength and competence. I gave several examples in history when such trump bubbles occurred and how they eventually burst when reality set in and the hot air evaporated. I, of course, suggested that this dynamic fit Donald J. Trump and that his bubble would burst, I just didn’t know when.
Access Hollywood Tape Scandal
In October 2016, a month before the Presidential Election, I thought that his Trump Bubble had burst. The Washington Post released an Access Hollywood Tape from 2005 in which Trump said that since he’s a star, he can do anything to women including grabbing them by the genitals. I thought that might be the end of his candidacy; that the Trump bubble had burst. But instead it was his biggest fundraising date so far as his supporters worked overtime to defend him. The scandal did not stop his candidacy and he won the election in November 2016.
January 6th Riot
After losing the election in November 2020, Trump fought back hard claiming that the election was stolen. He urged his followers to come to a rally on January 6, 2021. After Trump gave an inflammatory speech saying they needed to “fight like hell” or they “won’t have a country anymore,” the rallygoers marched to the Capitol Building. They fought violently with the Capitol Police, broke into and damaged the building, and temporarily stopped the congress from the routine certification of the state-by-state election results. This appeared to be the end of the Trump era. Again, I thought that the Trump Bubble had finally burst. But no. Nearly a year later, he resurfaced and started a well-organized campaign to win back the presidency in 2024—which he did.
Biden Honeymoon
When Joe Biden won the presidency in 2020, there was jubilation around the world—just like this past week. Democrats celebrated the end of the Trump era and his incompetence with Covid. During his first year in office, Biden effectively tackled the Covid crisis and the economic crisis caused by the Covid shutdown and its impact on jobs, supply chains, and much of the economy. It was a well-administered and well-received year of an incredible turnaround, especially with the American Rescue Plan Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The United States was the envy of the world in terms of vaccines for Covid and speed of economic recovery. Biden reversed many of the Trump administration’s worse policies and took a more humane approach.
But after a year in office, the attacks came against Biden and never let up. Out of office, Trump had the freedom to loudly criticize every aspect of the Biden administration, blaming him for inflation, a border out of control, and everything else possible.
The Fantasy Hero
Trump is skilled at playing the fantasy hero, who solves the fantasy crises and defeats the fantasy villains. This is the powerful story of Wannabe Kings that I have described many times (see “The Fantasy Crisis: How Wannabe Kings Gain Power”). The hidden source of his power is the endless media repetition of his many stories of:
- fantasy crises (election fraud, immigrant crime wave, trade wars against us, imminent threats from Iran, etc.);
- his fantasy villains (immigrants, people from s*&thole countries, Joe Biden, etc.); and
- himself as the fantasy hero (a “successful” businessman (six bankruptcies), who built a “great-again” economy (he rode on Obama’s rebuilt economy), who kept inflation down (after Covid, Biden brought inflation down to almost pre-Covid levels); who would bring the “terrible Biden inflation” down; who would settle Russia’s War on Ukraine in 24 hours; who would round up millions of illegal immigrants; who would “Make America Great Again.”
- All of this was a big con, which has enabled him to enrich himself, to disrupt all nations with worldwide tariffs, to start a war on a whim, and to make life worse for Americans while saying we’re doing great. In short, Trump always was and always will be a con man.
Media Repetition
Modern media made Trumpism. Through emotional intensity, extreme words, lots of repetition, and isolation from real facts, the media created an environment of fear, villains, and Trump as a hero. This occurred primarily through partisan cable 24/7 news, the intimacy of talk radio (heavily conservative), and intense social media participation. The vivid images and verbal power of these modern high-tech media overpower our brains with endless messages of conflict, crisis, chaos and fear (see Right Brain Politics) This makes us extremely susceptible to fantastical stories of crises-villains-heroes.
This media echo system remains totally intact after the Blue Wave of last Tuesday. There is and will be a honeymoon period, but it will be relatively short, I believe. As soon as Trump and this echo system gears up again, Democrats will be viciously attacked again as the villains. Every initiative they take will be termed as a “crisis.” It may take a month or even a year for today’s realities to be replaced by new fantasies, but it has happened before and may happen again.
What Can Be Done?
Democrats don’t just need to legislate effectively now. They need to educate effectively too. People need to know what just happened to them—and the country—over the past ten years. They need to expose the two main reasons behind giving one person such power to destroy our nation: they need to understand Wannabe King personalities and the power of high-emotion media to promote them.
1. Trump needs to be publicly exposed as Con Man Trump—a Wannabe King. The War on Iran, tariffs, election fraud, immigrant crime wave have all been a con to give himself power and wealth. People would see it now if our leaders were to call him on it. Everything he says and does is part of the con and always was. It’s just that he was restrained by others in his first term.
2. Most of all, our high-tech, high-emotion media needs to be exposed as promoting Wannabe Kings through unconscious emotional engagement. This comes from endless face and voice repetition that gets into our brains and shuts down our logical thinking. It is a con artist’s dream. People could see how this power works now if our leaders were to point this out. Otherwise, new trump bubbles may form and take over again.
It’s time to connect the dots! Personality matters!
Bill Eddy is a retired attorney and a resident of Ocean Beach.
