Praise for Trump Bubbles
“Bill Eddy’s latest book, Trump Bubbles, takes his high-conflict personality analysis into a sweeping look at political leaders and the high-risk effect of their personal patterns of behavior. At times frightening, insightful and hopeful, this book is a fascinating read about important issues. Narcissistic political leaders are highly attractive, but also can be very dangerous.”
—JOSEPH BURGO, PhD, clinical psychologist and author of
The Narcissist You Know: Defending Yourself Against Extreme
Narcissists in an All-About-Me Age
“Bill Eddy comes through in the nick of time with this tremendous exploration of high-conflict personalities in politics. Whether you are an anxious voter, a citizen who’s fed up with American politics, or someone who’s tired of drama in leadership, this book is for you. Nobody understands the psychological dynamics of high-profile and high-conflict politicians, or how to deal with them, better than Eddy. Get this book now, read it, and apply what’s inside. Trump Bubbles may be one of the most significant and needed books of the decade.”
—NATE REGIER, PhD, CEO of Next Element Consulting
and author of Beyond Drama: Transcending Energy Vampires and
Conflict without Casualties: A Field Guide for Leading
with Compassionate Accountability
“Picking up on the themes that Bill Eddy and I wrote about in our book Splitting America, published just before the 2012 presidential election, Trump Bubbles offers a stimulating, insightful, and in-depth historic analysis of previous political and economic ‘bubbles’ that, predictably, have risen and fallen over the years, and carries us forward into the unsettling 2016 presidential election—with its worrisome ‘Trump phenomenon.’ Bill’s well-documented explanation of this phenomenon is fascinating and informative, as he clearly illustrates the perils for our nation of having a high-conflict person in a major leadership position of power.”
—DONALD T. SAPOSNEK, PhD, author of
Mediating Child Custody Disputes: A Strategic Approach and
co-author of Splitting America: How Politicians, Super PACs and the
News Media Mirror High Conflict Divorce
“From the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, to McCarthyism, to the Vietnam War and the Iraq War, Eddy points out how political leadership by narcissistic personalities is nothing new. What’s new are the recent cultural, economic, and social changes—including American media practices—that have created the perfect storm of American politics in 2016. Eddy offers concrete recommendations on how each of us can respond to ‘Trump bubbles’ now and in the future. This book should be required reading before voting for any candidate.”
—ALISON L. PATTON, Esq., attorney, mediator, and
contributing writer to Huffington Post and lemonadedivorce.com
“No matter where you stand on the politic spectrum, you have a responsibility to read this book. Bill Eddy brings the reality of our world into focus through the lenses of history, psychology, and politics. He gives us all a way to make sense of the high-conflict culture in which we live and offers the long-overdue gift of sound, down-to-earth advice about how to maintain our sanity, if not our civilization. If only Trump Bubbles had been in print seventy or eighty years ago, humanity would today be in a far healthier place.”
—BENJAMIN D. GARBER, PhD, author of
Holding Tight/Letting Go, Developmental Psychology for
Family Law Professionals, and Keeping Kids Out of the Middle
Publisher’s Note
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information about the subject matters covered. It is sold with the understanding that neither the author nor publisher are rendering legal, mental health, medical, or other professional services, either directly or indirectly. If expert assistance, legal services, or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Neither the author nor the publisher shall be liable or responsible for any loss or damage allegedly arising as a consequence of your use or application of any information or suggestions in this book.
Copyright © 2016 by Bill Eddy
Unhooked Books, LLC
7701 E. Indian School Rd., Ste. F
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
www.unhookedbooks.com
ISBN: 978-1-936268-10-8
eISBN: 978-1-936268-11-5
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without the express written permission of the publisher. Failure to comply with these terms may expose you to legal action and damages for copyright infringement.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016939285
Cover design by Julian Leon
Interior Layout by Jeffrey Fuller
Printed in the United States of America
Also by Bill Eddy:
Splitting America: How Politicians, Super PACS, and the News Media Mirror High-Conflict Divorce, with Donald Saposnek
It’s All Your Fault at Work! Managing Narcissists and Other High-Conflict People, with L. Georgi DiStefano
BIFF: Quick Responses to High-Conflict People, Their Personal Attacks, Hostile Email, and Social Media Meltdowns (Second Edition)
So, What’s Your Proposal? Shifting High-Conflict People from Blaming to Problem-Solving in 30 Seconds
It’s All Your Fault! 12 Tips for Managing People Who Blame Others for Everything
High Conflict People in Legal Disputes
New Ways for Work Coaching Manual & Workbook: Personal Skills for Productive Relationships, with L. Georgi DiStefano
Don’t Alienate the Kids! Raising Resilient Children While Avoiding High Conflict Divorce
Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder, with Randi Kreger
Managing High Conflict People in Court
The Future of Family Court
New Ways for Families in Separation and Divorce:
Professional Guidebook
Parent Workbook
Collaborative Parent Workbook
Decision Skills Class Instructor’s Manual & Workbook
Pre-Mediation Coaching Manual & Workbook
Dedicated to future leaders everywhere:
May you learn to build bridges and not walls.
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction: High-Conflict Politicians
PART I: THE RISE
Chapter 1: Right-Brain Politics
Chapter 2: Leader Love (The Seduction of US against THEM)
Chapter 3: The Power of Loss and Resentment
Chapter 4: The Power of Emotional Media
Chapter 5: The Power of Personality
Chapter 6: Splitting America in Half
PART II: THE FALL
Chapter 7: High-Conflict Politicians and Their Predictable Wars
Chapter 8: The Iraq War Bubble and Beyond
Chapter 9: How to Talk to Trump Bubble Supporters
Chapter 10: Restraining High-Conflict Politicians
References
Acknowledgements
About the Author
PREFACE
DONALD TRUMP is potentially the most dangerous person in politics since Adolf Hitler. Not because of his politics (which are ever changing), but because of his personality (which is never changing).
Trump has a seductive US-against-THEM personality style that far exceeds any other candidate, Republican or Democrat, and can inspire violence. Sure, there was Stalin, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, and other ruthless dictators. But Hitler took a cultured democracy—like ours—and turned it into a hate machine that he led into World War II.
Can’t happen here? There are many high-conflict personality warning signs that say it can. Donald Saposnek and I predicted some of this in 2012 in our book Splitting America.
You might say that the United States in 2016 is completely different from Germany almost one hundred years ago. After all, Germany was heavily burdened with paying reparations after losing World War I in 1918, and then the Great Depression made that all worse. It was people in the lower-middle class who were most devastated by this. Hitler knew how to manipulate them into following him—while blaming everyone else.
In the United States, it is predominantly the lower-middle class who have recently lost jobs, houses, marriages, and worse because of the Great Recession. Many have become Trump’s core group of followers. They have felt ignored by both the Democratic and Republican established politicians (the “establishment”). Such resentments can make large groups of people particularly vulnerable to a strong leader who uses high-conflict patterns of speech, as Trump does—and Hitler did.
Hitler’s oratory caused his followers to intensely love him and intensely hate Jews, gypsies, communists, homosexuals, and the parliamentary government in Berlin. He pounded on this so intensely at large rallies that people absorbed his messages without thinking. Trump uses similar high-conflict patterns of speech at large rallies to cause his followers to love him and hate Mexicans, Muslims, African Americans, the president, Congress, and even journalists.
Hitler was the first to use modern electronic media to dominate people’s political thinking. He had radio speeches constantly pumped into people’s homes via radio which compelled them to absorb his toxic messages. He held huge rallies and made movies of them, to reach even more people. Images and sounds have a much more powerful impact on the brain than print media, and Hitler’s face and his voice were everywhere.
Trump understands that constantly getting his face and voice on TV and radio has a powerful influence on people. His message is not about useful information or his future policies—it’s about how big and strong he is and who to hate now. Even if people’s lives aren’t as bad here and now as in Hitler’s Germany, the power of today’s all-pervasive media to promote messages of fear and anger is so much stronger.
I believe that Trump has a 50-50 chance of winning the presidential election in November 2016. The high-conflict personality pattern is already in place and, if I’m correct, Trump has only just begun.
But I believe the Donald Trump bubble can be burst. The way party leaders and others expose this high-conflict pattern to voters can make all the difference. If it is explained respectfully to potential voters, I think that Trump can be stopped.
I wish I could tell you that “I guarantee it,” “it will be a beautiful thing,” and “it will be amazing.” But that’s part of the hot air that keeps the Trump bubble afloat. We don’t need more bubbles.
The following is a short book that I first presented over three weeks in March 2016 as a series of twelve blogs. Instead of hot air, I rely on social science, psychology, and history as well as insight from my professional experience dealing with high-conflict personalities and situations. I hope this will help you and those around you to understand the personality dangers of a Donald Trump Presidency.
Bill Eddy
March 27, 2016
INTRODUCTION
HIGH-CONFLICT POLITICIANS
Remember the dot-com bust of 2000? And the housing and stock market bubbles that burst in 2008? For years, people enthusiastically believed that these areas of spectacular growth would never end. The future was incredible and the bubbles were held up by the hot air of enthusiasm without substance. In 1996, then—Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan referred to this as “irrational exuberance.”
But these bubbles did burst, causing millions of people to lose their houses, jobs, marriages, self-esteem and more. These spent bubbles still have ripple effects throughout our economy and the political world to this day. They were pumped up by emotions without thinking. We didn’t listen to the people who said they were overblown bubbles that couldn’t last.
A TRUMP BUBBLE
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—but there are others. His bubble is just more obvious.
Trump’s rise has been surprising to almost everyone, including himself. Some people always said he was full of hot air, but now people are taking him seriously. This is common for high-conflict people (HCPs for shorty), who have a narrow (and predictable) way of thinking and behaving. They have an adversarial approach to almost all of their relationships—it’s US against THEM. When they get into politics, HCPs build their entire political agenda on US against THEM.
As Dorothy Thompson, an American reporter said in 1931, after interviewing Hitler two years before he took power in Germany: “[Hitler says] The Jews are responsible for everything.” She summarized the situation, adding “take the Jews out of Hitler’s program, and the whole thing…collapses.”
By the end of “World War II, it became clear that Thompson was right. But throughout the 1920s and 1930s, people thought Hitler was smarter than that and would change his tune once he was in charge. They were wrong.
In an HCP’s eyes, people are simply all-good or all-bad, winners or losers. Sometimes, almost inadvertently, they discover a group of people who are so upset that they will follow this US-against-THEM approach wherever the high-conflict person leads them. Unfortunately, HCPs generally have a distorted picture of the world, don’t study history or policy, and are more impulsive than most people.
If they are narcissistic HCPs, they see their ignorance and lack of planning as a good thing, because they already are “brilliant,” “attractive” and “powerful.” They vigorously defend their mistakes without self-reflection or apology, and instead invest all their energy in attacking others (THEM), often over very petty things. This is because their whole lives have been built around their US-against-THEM, attack-and-defend personalities.
ANGRY WITH A BUTTON
In Donald Trump’s case, he has tapped into the anger of a significant section of the electorate who feel recently disenfranchised—primarily because of the economic downturns of the last four decades, culminating in the housing and stock market bubble bursts of 2008. These are real problems that have not been addressed sufficiently by either political party. Trump gives his followers the appearance of addressing these issues by leading his followers with anger against the establishment (US against THEM).
While anger can be good for getting attention (and the primary skill of HCPs is getting attention), it can also be dangerous—very dangerous when combined with the strength of the worlds only superpower.
Trump would have a finger on the button of the world’s most powerful nuclear weapons if he became president of the United States. The risk of such danger needs to be understood, especially since he demonstrates significant warning signs of a high-conflict personality. In this book I will explain the importance of recognizing high-conflict patterns.
PREDICTING THE TRUMP BUBBLE
You might think I’m crazy to have written a book about the rise and fall of Donald Trump when he’s riding high in March 2016. But I feel quite confident that the pattern of behavior I describe in this book will play out in the same way that it has for so many other high-conflict leaders—in politics and in business. I just don’t know the timing of his fall.
Will it be before or after the November presidential elections?
Therefore, I have written this book to be relevant for generations to come, especially because there have been trump bubbles before and there will be many trump bubbles in the future, until we learn how to stop them from forming.
This pattern is too familiar and too destructive to ignore. Yet most people don’t even realize it’s a pattern—and don’t realize there are things they can do about it. They see it in isolation, as if we’ve never seen someone like Donald J. Trump before. We have. It’s just that his bubble is bigger. Of course! It has to be! And it’s potentially much more dangerous.
While this book is about the sudden rise of Donald Trump and his inevitable fall, it’s also about trying to get beyond the rise and fall of high-conflict leaders—all the trump bubbles. I don’t think that even “the Donald” or his followers understands the power he is unleashing.
This isn’t about bashing Trump personally, but rather showing how the combination of his high-conflict personality with certain demographic changes and technological advances in communication is creating a powerful force that will inevitably overwhelm him—and possibly all of us—either before or after the election. Emotions are contagious and high-conflict emotions are highly contagious.
HIGH-CONFLICT PATTERNS
High-conflict people have identifiable patterns. Do you notice any patterns in the following three stories?
Thursday, March 3
Mitt Romney, the 2012 presidential candidate of the Republican Party, gave a speech blasting 2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump as a “fraud” and a “phony” who thinks that the American people are “suckers.” Soon, John McCain, the 2008 presidential candidate of the Republican Party, joined in with this message.
Polls the next day reported that this speech helped Trump, rather than hurt him. Instead of being inspired by Romney, Trump’s followers criticized Romney as being “condescending,” “presumptuous,” “out of touch” and an “establishment figure.”
Monday, March 7
Donald Trump held a campaign rally, which was shown on TV the next day. At the rally, a parent asked him: “How can I explain your frequent swearing to my daughter?” Trump started to answer, then quickly switched to a hostile tone of voice: “You’re one of those politically correct people, aren’t you?” Then Trump turned to the crowd. “We’ve had enough of political correctness. You’re not going to tolerate this, are you?” And the whole crowd loudly jeered the parent.
Friday, March 11
A news report described the increase in protests at Trump rallies, including conflict between his team and reporters:
The rancor is so blatant that Mr. Trump was asked about it during the debate on Thursday night in Miami. He said he had not seen the violent episode in Fayetteville, and when asked if he was encouraging his supporters’ fury, he said, “I hope not.”…
Despite pre-event disclaimers urging peaceable conduct, Mr. Trump’s tone often seems to encourage aggression….
Perhaps not coincidentally, Mr. Trump has lately started asking his supporters to raise their right hand and pledge their loyalty to him, creating tableaus that critics have likened to the salutes of followers of Hitler and Mussolini….
The response when a protest breaks out can seem almost biological.
(I added the bold above and will refer to these issues later.)
If you noticed a pattern of emotionally intense US-against-THEM thinking and behavior, I would agree with you. This is a fundamental pattern for high-conflict people, because they are preoccupied with blaming others and trying to justify themselves.
HIGH-CONFLICT PEOPLE (HCPS)
The patterns of high-conflict people are more predictable than those of the average person, because they are stuck in repeating them. They have a pattern of increasing conflict, rather than reducing or managing it. Most people respond to a conflict with efforts to solve the problem, but high-conflict people respond with actions that grow the problem. They intensify and prolong disputes, involving lots of other people, so that the conflict gets higher and higher. They repeatedly make existing problems worse and totally create some of the conflicts that they claim they’re trying to resolve.
I have been observing and teaching others about this pattern for the past fifteen years in my work as a lawyer, therapist, mediator, and trainer of dispute resolution professionals. The pattern is extremely consistent. On the surface, it contains at least the following key characteristics:
1) Preoccupation with blaming others
2) Lots of “all-or-nothing” thinking
3) Intense or unmanaged emotions
4) Extreme behaviors or threats of extreme behavior
CAUTIONARY NOTE: If you recognize this pattern in anyone you know, DON’T tell them—it will make your life a lot worse for months or years to come. Just think about how you can relate to them in a respectful and cautious manner.
People with these characteristics—whom I call high-conflict people—view relationships as inherently adversarial and often charm those close to them, until the HCP turns on them and treats them as their next target of blame.
Under the surface, HCPs also have the following three traits, which are associated with personality disorders:
1) Lack of self-awareness (they don’t self-reflect)
2) Lack of behavior change (despite strong negative feedback)
3) Belief that problems just happen (always someone else’s fault)
However, high-conflict leaders don’t necessarily have personality disorders, although they usually display some of these traits.
Being able to recognize these traits in others will help you understand how to deal with HCPs, especially what you should not do:
• Don’t try to reason with them.
• Don’t pressure them to change their behavior.
• Don’t angrily imply it’s all their fault.
HIGH-CONFLICT LEADERS
When HCPs become leaders, the situation can become quite serious. Their pattern is to involve many other people in their dysfunction:
• Targets of blame who become their innocent victims
• Followers who become very loyal and attack the leader’s targets of blame
• Negative advocates who have more credibility and recruit more followers
• Ambivalent bystanders who are uncomfortable but keep their distance
This becomes a tragic pattern for everyone. Yet it is avoidable once people recognize it—especially the advocates and the bystanders. But it is also a hidden and deceptive pattern, so that only the trained eye may see it coming.
THE HIGH-CONFLICT BUBBLE
Most people are truly surprised—even shocked—at the sudden and successful rise of a dysfunctional leader. An enthusiastic bubble of emotional energy forms around the HCP leader, sweeping up others based primarily on the person’s intense emotions and appearance of power. Yet there is little substance. It is the hot air that fuels the bubble.
Inevitably, the hot air is unsustainable. Reality sets in. Real information comes forward. Targets of blame push back effectively. Negative advocates start abandoning the leader. The bubble deflates, sometimes quite rapidly or dangerously.
HIGH-CONFLICT POLITICIANS
Unfortunately, this tragic high-conflict leadership pattern is most dangerous when it is accompanied by political power—especially in the hands of the head of a government. The reason is that the HCP pattern also includes splitting people (dividing them into “US” and “THEM”) and overreaching (because they can’t stop their own aggressive tendencies). These characteristics, when combined with political power, generally lead to violence and eventually to war in one form or another.
Rather than moderating their positions and becoming more reasonable when they get into power, HCPs become more aggressive. I’ve seen this hundreds of times in family, workplace, and legal disputes involving high-conflict individuals.