Donald Trump has built his entire political project on hype and delusion — the same ingredients that fuel every economic bubble. But belief cannot defy reality forever. When cruelty replaces competence and lies replace truth, collapse follows. In this video, I explain why Trump's political and economic bubble is unsustainable, how tariffs and speculation are destroying US livelihoods, and why the far-right worldwide will fall with him.
This is the audio version:
This is the transcript:
When will the Trump bubble burst?
I'm sure that Trump's bubble is going to burst. And just for the record, I'm not at this moment talking about a financial crisis that is coming, although I have in other videos. I'm talking about the political bubble that Trump has created. I'm sure that too is going to burst.
Let's remember, all bubbles are built on the basis of two things: the first is hype, and the second is delusion. And Trump has been peddling both of these in his political version of reality, which is anything but that because it's built on fantasy, deceit, and fear.
A bubble happens when belief replaces value. In economics, it's when people stop asking what is happening in the real market and start assuming that prices will rise forever. Politically, Trump has done the same. He's convinced millions that cruelty, chaos, and lies represent leadership.
But we now know that's not true. In the States, 70% of people no longer have confidence in his form of leadership. But the question is, when does that belief system that is sustaining what he's doing break?
Trump did not, after all, deliver for America from 2016 to 2020. We know that. If he had, he would have won the election in 2020, but he didn't. Jobs had not been revived, and inequality grew. His tax cuts enriched the rich and drained the state. Debt rose heavily as far as the US government was concerned. And even before COVID, his economic bubble was bursting. The pandemic just exposed it faster.
And this time around, Trump is relying on creating an even bigger bubble than he did last time.
Tariffs are now seen to be taxes on consumers and not on foreign governments.
We are seeing in the States in particular that tariffs are wrecking supply chains and raising prices, and that's happening most particularly in Trump's own Republican heartlands. The big question is when will they, and in particular, the farmers in the Midwest, lose faith in Trump because they relied on soya bean crops, which they were exporting to China, and the expected quantity of soya beans to be exported to China in 2025 is precisely nothing. Their market has disappeared.
He has destroyed their well-being already in the same way that his tax cuts are fueling division and speculation, and not investment or growth. He's breaking down the livelihoods of real people in the USA.
And yet Trump's policies are being mimicked by the far-right leaders globally with the same hollow results. 30% of people in America still seem to believe in Trump, and that same hardcore is reflected in the support for the far-right in Britain, France, Germany, and beyond. There appears to be this core who will believe at present.
But the Trump cult cannot deliver prosperity. It only delivers grievance, and grievance can't sustain this cult. When belief collides with reality, collapse will follow as bubbles always burst. Trump's self-styled belief in himself, and, for example, in the deal of the century that he claims to have forged in the Middle East, is all a mirage. Everything about him is mythology.
So, for example, looking at that deal with regard to Gaza, there is actually nothing of substance in it. There's no enforceable peace. There was just a prisoner swap, and it ignored Palestinian reality. His Nobel Prize ambitions now look particularly absurd. This deal will be massively unravelling before the 2026 nominations close on 31st January in that year. When this peace evaporates, so will his global credibility.
But so far, the far-right populists haven't noticed. They're still following. Their appeal, like his, rests on resentment and not results. But when it's apparent that Trump can't deliver results, whether at home or abroad, his credibility will decay, and so too will theirs.
And that then becomes the critical tipping point; the point when the far-right illusion that's built on Trumpism will fade. I believe that's going to happen. I believe that the Trump bubble will burst, but this is not just about one man. It's about a global ideology of contempt for truth, law, and community that will literally be shattered. And when it does burst, millions will face the shock of discovering that cruelty was never a policy.
But this will do something much more important. From my perspective, this will open the chance to rebuild the politics of care and honesty and competence.
Markets correct when valuations lose touch with fundamentals, and we face that risk right now. And Trumpism will collapse in the same way when belief cannot forever defy the evidence that Trump is failing. And the more he blames others, the weaker his myth will seem to be.
The question is not if his bubble now bursts, but when it will and how much harm he will cause when it does. And if they collapse together - both financial markets and Trump - maybe we will get the chance to build back better.
I know that feels like a pretty bleak conclusion to draw, but all bubbles do end, and Trump's economic, political, and moral bubble is no exception. When it bursts, it will take much of the global far-right down with it.
Our task is to be ready; ready to rebuild democracy. Ready to rebuild truth. Ready to rebuild decency. Ready to rebuild from the wreckage that Trump will leave behind him.
That's why what I talk about here is so important. The ideas I present about the future and those which others present, because, let's be clear, I'm not claiming to have all the answers to every question, are important because we need them. We need them when the far-right disappears, and that may happen sooner than you think.
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In a few years, we’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who’ll admit to ever having voted for Trump, Milei, Orban, Fico or Farage.
Hi
What I have read is that when a cult (eg a UFO doomsday one) is presented with objective evidence that their belief is untrue, they don’t tend to change their minds. Rather, they double down on their existing belief.
Second, if I were a despot, I would control how people get information and it seems that this is what Trump is doing via control of media and social media by his supporters.
My question then is, what is the mechanism by which you see trumpism collapsing?
Hard facts
The collpase of MidWest farming, for a start
It is under way
I hope so, but the fact of the world not ending did not end the other cults.
I reckon they will blame trans people for the soybean crash. Black people for whatever the techbros do… you get the idea.
Trump is considering doubling financial support to Argentina to $40 billion whilst ignoring midwest soybean farmers who are facing bankruptcy having lost the Chinese market. Argentinian soybean farmers, meanwhile, are selling their soybean crop to China. What a slap in the US farmers’ faces.
Looks like there’s rivalry developing in Argentina between China and the US for Argentinian resources.
“You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.” ( Ayn Rand).
When Joe Rogan turns against you it is all over in MAGA world. Just stick in a fork because you are DONE!
Joe Rogan HAS turned against Trump. May I borrow a fork please?????
Failure to renew the Affordable Care Act subsidies will finish Trump off.
When people have been had, shame and disillusion sets in, even denial as well because of hurt pride.
This is where the political strategists come in and take advantage and find new targets of hate to help keep people like Trump going.
This is where his wealth and that of his supporters comes in as well. These are dangerous points because this is where someone else will cop the anger of the disillusion – even internationally. The money will keep the whole rotten enterprise going. And effectively now the opposition is no longer in the senate or HoR. It’s in the states themselves.
What I’m waiting for in the U.S. is the next election. It will be er…very interesting indeed. The federal system is going to be stretched to breaking point, just like in a previous age.
Let’s hope your analysis of Trump’s downfall is correct (I believe it is) and that the same process will happen to Farage in Britain. How someone who can advocate deporting 700,000 legal migrants and terrorise asylum seekers in their accommodation even ignoring threats to burn them alive can be taken seriously begars belief.
You do a good job here Richard of spinning hope from despair. I think you are right- disillusionment with Trump is already setting in with the American electorate, as the opinion polls show. But Trump openly said during the last election campaign that voters would “only
have to vote for him once.” He has no intention of bowing to the electoral system and accepting being voted out of office. In a way the opinion polls are doing the cause of democracy a bad turn, The Worse they are for Trump, the more fearful he will be and the more he will double down on securing his position by other undemocratic means- legal indictment of his opponents, troops on the streets of American cities. All this is meant to frighten people into not opposing him. Jonathan Freedland has a convincing article in the Guardian this morning arguing that Trump will go as far as provoking civil war to hang on to power. We could be facing an economic crisis triggered by political violence in the USA, with all the knock on effects world wide that that would bring. You are right to look through this and point out that in the past such events have led to a surge of energy for building a better society, but the thought of having to live through the cataclysm first fills me with dread.
Many people will put up with injustice if they are not the main target e.g.the American south pre-1965. And if the rhetoric makes them feel they are part of a powerful nation.
But the Achilles heel of this administration is the cuts to Obamacare while billionaires get tax cuts.
If the backers of MAGA were not so greedy, Trump could even hand the next election to someone like him.
As I say -probably too often-evil contains the seeds of its own destruction.
Much to agree with
I’m not sure how quickly Trump will be got rid of in the USA. He seems to be prepared to ruin the country and invoke a civil war for his own personal gratification.
I am fairly certain that the vast majority of UK citizens do not want any part of Trumpism on these shores. It is as close to fascism as you can get minus the goose-stepping that it is easily recognisable to most of us. Trump even has his own version of the Gestapo hunting down his political opponents and immigrants. Habeas Corpus is forgotten for now, in fact, many of his acolytes don’t know what it is.
Poor Farage. He has strapped himself to the mast of a ship that will soon be sisinki. Maybe he will be rescued at the last minute, but I doubt it. It’s too late. Even the rottenness of Labour cannot save him.
I hope you’re right, the sooner the better,