Shrink The Nation is a psychology podcast about politics, media, and American insanity — hosted by board-certified psychiatrists who drink bourbon and actually know what they’re talking about.
Each week, we take whatever the news is lighting on fire and ask a better question:
What the hell is going on psychologically?
We break down current events as they’re actually experienced — through fear, ego, narcissism, tribalism, and spectacle — and explain why smart people keep getting pulled into dumb arguments.
This isn’t a lecture.
It’s a conversation.
We argue with each other, bust each other’s balls, laugh at the absurdity, and use real psychology to make the chaos intelligible — without yelling, moralizing, or pretending everything’s fine.
You’ll hear sharp psychological takes on politics and culture, explanations that make you say “ohhh… that makes sense,” dark humor, bourbon-fueled honesty, and frameworks you can reuse when the next news cycle melts down.
We’re not here to calm you down.
We’re here to help you see clearly — and enjoy the process.
Shrink The Nation is for anyone who wants to understand what’s happening, laugh a little at the madness, and come back next week feeling smarter than they did last time.
Shrink The Nation is a psychology podcast about politics, media, and American insanity — hosted by board-certified psychiatrists who drink bourbon and actually know what they’re talking about.
Each week, we take whatever the news is lighting on fire and ask a better question:
What the hell is going on psychologically?
We break down current events as they’re actually experienced — through fear, ego, narcissism, tribalism, and spectacle — and explain why smart people keep getting pulled into dumb arguments.
This isn’t a lecture.
It’s a conversation.
We argue with each other, bust each other’s balls, laugh at the absurdity, and use real psychology to make the chaos intelligible — without yelling, moralizing, or pretending everything’s fine.
You’ll hear sharp psychological takes on politics and culture, explanations that make you say “ohhh… that makes sense,” dark humor, bourbon-fueled honesty, and frameworks you can reuse when the next news cycle melts down.
We’re not here to calm you down.
We’re here to help you see clearly — and enjoy the process.
Shrink The Nation is for anyone who wants to understand what’s happening, laugh a little at the madness, and come back next week feeling smarter than they did last time.
In this year-end episode of Shrink the Nation, psychiatrists David and Robby explore why 2025 didn’t feel like a political year — it felt like a nervous system event.
Public trust in government has fallen to historic lows, anxiety has surged, and control has become the dominant coping mechanism across politics, media, and culture. Using psychological frameworks — including anxiety theory, projection, and family systems dynamics — the hosts unpack how uncertainty drove shutdowns, power grabs, tribal loyalty tests, and the erosion of institutional legitimacy.
They discuss why leadership promises certainty when nuance is needed, how social media fragments reality, and why Americans increasingly search for strong figures instead of stable systems. From government shutdowns to declining faith in Congress, this episode examines how fear reshapes democracy — and why simplifying complex problems often makes them worse.
This conversation isn’t about left vs. right. It’s about what happens when anxiety replaces trust, control replaces cooperation, and institutions fail to regulate themselves.
If you’re trying to understand the psychological forces shaping American politics — and what might come next — this episode puts 2025 on the couch.
If the last week of political news left you exhausted instead of informed, this episode is for you.
In Episode 26 of Shrink the Nation, board-certified psychiatrists unpack a pattern playing out in real time: what happens when a political leader thrives in the pursuit of power but struggles to hold it.
We examine Trump’s recent national address as a “comeback sermon” — a speech designed less to inform than to regulate anxiety through certainty, blame, and narrative control. From there, we look at the rollout of the so-called Patriot Games as political spectacle, and finally at the rewriting of presidential history inside the White House itself through newly altered plaques.
Using psychology rather than partisan talking points, we explore:
This isn’t about left vs. right.
It’s about orientation — stepping back far enough to see the pattern so the panic loses its grip.
You’re not crazy.
You’re not alone.
And no, everything is not on fire.
Pour something, take a breath, and let’s talk about what’s actually happening.
Board-certified psychiatrists break down a rare political event: leaders choosing restraint instead of power.
In this episode of Shrink the Nation, we examine why Indiana lawmakers refusing to gerrymander feels so shocking—and what it reveals about narcissism, projection, moral injury, and fear of losing control in American politics.
We explore:
This isn’t about red vs. blue. It’s about what happens to democracy when power becomes emotional regulation—and why the rare act of doing nothing may be the most mature move left.
Pour something strong.
Sit on the couch.
Let’s talk about power, panic, and the soothing illusion of merch.
America stumbles back onto the couch this week clutching a moral hangover, a pair of airport pajamas, and a phone full of AI-generated lies. David and Rob pour heavy and dive straight into the national psyche’s three-alarm fire.
First up: the second strike heard ’round the world — the moment the country collectively decided to argue about chain-of-command paperwork instead of confronting the psychological crater of killing shipwrecked survivors. Politicians play semantic hopscotch, the internet plays war-crimes bingo, and the guys break down moral displacement — the defense where a nation fixates on technicalities to avoid looking directly at what it did. It’s outrage, avoidance, and a masterclass in how cognitive dissonance gets laundered into patriotism.
Then: the Great American Pajama Purge. The Department of Transportation (led by Real World alumnus Sean Duffy, because of course) decides the true crisis in aviation is… flannel pants. Within minutes, the country responds with weaponized coziness, TSA lines full of malicious compliance, and a collective middle finger made of fleece. Rob — longtime pajama hater, closet traditionalist, and now apparently the moral spine of federal dress code enforcement — finally gets his moment. David tries to keep a straight face while navigating the psychological anthropology of airport culture, delayed flights, and humanity at its absolute swampiest.
Finally: AI enters the chat… and the voting booth. Deepfakes, synthetic robocalls, and chatbots that can persuade voters who hate the candidate by 10 percentage points. Yes, you read that right — AI is now capable of manufacturing its own political reality and convincing humans to move in. The guys explore how cognitive shortcuts, loneliness, confirmation bias, and algorithmic grooming collide to produce an electorate that no longer knows which thoughts belong to them. The future isn’t coming — it already slid into your DMs.
• Moral displacement and why America is arguing about memos instead of morality
• Laws of Armed Conflict, shipwrecked survivors, and the ethics we’d rather avoid
• The psychology of second-strike denialism
• Airport pajamas, class anxiety, and the crumbling of social norms
• Reality TV cabinet members and the death of gravitas
• AI persuasion, deepfake politics, and voter vulnerability
• Why chatbots feel “trustworthy” even when they’re confidently hallucinating
• TikTok-as-news and generational epistemic collapse
• One deepfake per day, max. Titrate your political hallucinations responsibly.
• Stop outsourcing your conscience. If your leaders can’t say whether something’s wrong, assume it is.
• Delete TikTok for a week. Your brain will reboot. Your anxiety will drop. Your therapist will thank you.
Grab a bourbon, put down the algorithmically cursed newsfeed, and settle in as we guide America through its moral fog, pajama revolt, and AI-fueled identity crisis.
Education & entertainment only; not therapy.
Contact: socials@shrinkthenation.com • More: shrinkthenation.com
The holidays have arrived, and so has the national cortisol spike. David and Rob stumble out of Thanksgiving bloat into a world overtaken by 12-foot Santas, Mariah Carey psy-ops, and a neighborly Christmas-light arms race that probably violates the Geneva Convention. Amid the peppermint mayhem, they tackle the stories actually frying America’s nervous system.
First up: The War on Drugs 2.0, now rebranded as a fight against “narco-terrorism.” Defense contractors are thrilled, civil libertarians are clutching their chests, and drones previously meant for battlefields are now circling fishing boats in the Caribbean. The guys break down the psychology of fear-labeling, the financial incentives behind escalation, and the moral whiplash of punishing addiction with counterterror tactics.
Then: Rush Hour 4 is happening — because apparently the nation ran out of ideas and decided to reboot 2007. Jackie Chan is 70, Chris Tucker has lived 17 lives since the last film, and the reboot says more about our nostalgia addiction than the franchise ever did. The guys unpack the temptation to romanticize the past when the present feels like a migraine.
Finally, the episode ends in a sobering place: weaponized justice. The DOJ’s recent attempts at retribution-style prosecutions get tossed by judges, raising big questions about fear conditioning, democratic drift, and whether we’re normalizing behaviors that used to be the red flags of banana republics.
• Holiday season chaos and why everyone’s dissociating
• “Narco-terrorism” — label or legal shortcut?
• Drones, fear, and the monetization of crisis
• Nostalgia as anesthesia for modern life
• Rush Hour 4 and the psychology of reboots
• Retribution politics and the DOJ as a punishment stick
• How fear conditioning shapes public behavior
• Why privacy collapses during moral panics
• Addiction, bias, and why milkshakes are more like heroin than anyone wants to admit
• Fear breaks — mandatory five-minute resets from the panic-industrial complex. Even drones need a smoke break.
• If a law doesn’t require capital punishment, don’t enforce it as one overseas. Basic adulthood.
• Before green-lighting any movie reboot, the government must fix one public service (start with the DMV). Only then may Jackie Chan do another nonsensical stunt.
• Any agency pushing retribution prosecutions must spend 24 hours in a sensory deprivation tank labeled “Think About What You Did.”
Grab a bourbon, loosen the waistband, and embrace the peppermint-flavored nihilism.
It’s holiday season in America — what could possibly go wrong?
Education and entertainment only; not therapy. Contact: socials@shrinkthenation.com • More: shrinkthenation.com
Two psychiatrists. One room. Zero buffer. And a political landscape having a full-blown identity crisis.
This week, David and Rob dig into the psychological mess behind Marjorie Taylor Greene’s sudden resignation announcement — a move that looks less like strategy and more like a total collapse of political identity. Once fused to MAGA, she’s now excommunicated, redefining herself in real time on CNN, and describing her role as that of a “battered spouse.” It’s pure identity fallout, and the guys unpack the cognitive and emotional wreckage.
From there, the episode swerves into Trump’s approval-ratings-that-can’t-go-down — because when the polls tank, you can always just redefine who counts as “smart people.” It’s a masterclass in cognitive dissonance management, projection, and brand-preservation psychology.
Then: the wildest development yet — an AI-generated Christian nationalist anthem titled We Are Charlie Kirk, created after the Turning Point founder’s assassination. The conversation hits the uncanny valley of AI-manufactured martyrdom, right-wing MeToo dynamics, trolling-as-religion, and how AI is now writing our political myths faster than we can fact-check them.
The episode closes on Dick Cheney’s funeral — an unexpectedly poignant reflection on leadership, consistency, and the nostalgia for a political era where you could disagree with a politician and still respect them. Cheney held the line; the country feels like it’s losing it. “I miss old America,” Rob says — and for once, nobody jokes.
In This Episode:
• MTG’s resignation and the psychological freefall of losing your political self
• Why identity fusion makes political breakups feel like divorces
• Trump’s approval polls and the art of redefining reality
• AI-generated martyr worship and the rise of the algorithmic religion
• Trauma bonding, out-group exile, and MAGA’s internal fragmentation
• Dick Cheney’s legacy and the vanished value of authenticity in leadership
Prescriptions
• Politicians who resign: mandatory 6–12 month no-camera detox, no book deal, no podcast. Do one thing for your constituents — and you’re not allowed to tweet about it.
• State funerals: a required segment titled “Here’s What It Cost,” narrated by Morgan Freeman over a slide deck of uncomfortable truths.
Two psychiatrists. One bottle of Old Forester. America in crisis.
You’re not crazy — but the country might be.
"Got Thoughts? Outrage? A Diagnosis of Your Own? Send us a text"
Shrink The Nation is where America lies on the couch — and we pour the bourbon.
Hosted by board-certified psychiatrists and mental health pros with backgrounds in military, media, and systems thinking, we break down the psychology behind politics, culture, and public dysfunction.
Smart. Funny. Clinically sharp. Slightly buzzed.
Subscribe, rate, and share if you’re part of the exhausted middle looking for sanity in the noise.
For feedback or hate-listening invitations, hit us at socials@shrinkthenation.com.
Follow us everywhere: @shrinkthenation on X, Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky
Shrink The Nation — On the Couch With America.
The government has “reopened,” but as David puts it, systems reboot faster than people. The shutdown may be over, but the stress response is still humming under the floorboards. This week, we look at what political instability actually does to a population — especially a middle class already living one bad month from catastrophe.
We unpack the Pyrrhic victory both parties insisted on celebrating, the family-systems chaos powering today’s political dynamics, and why entire voting blocs are starting to lose trust in the parents they never asked for.
And yes, the breakup heard round the MAGA world: Trump vs. Marjorie Taylor Greene — a rupture that reveals more about trauma bonding and identity panic than about policy.
Then there’s the rise of celebrity candidates — Matthew McConaughey included — and what it says about a nation searching for leaders who can survive the projection of a tribe desperate for meaning. In a world where authenticity beats competence and vibes beat credentials, the next governor might just walk in wearing bongos.
In this episode:
• The shutdown hangover and why your anxiety didn’t “go away,” it just got quiet
• Why political wins now feel like Pyrrhic victories with no strategic benefit
• Family systems theory: Democrats and Republicans as the parents in a toxic marriage
• Why the middle class is becoming the new political center of gravity
• Celebrity politics and the “projection armor” required to survive leadership
• The Trump–MTG breakup and what it means for trauma-bonded movements
• MAGA’s identity crisis: when the brand shifts but the supporters don’t
• The growing demand for a new political identity that isn’t pure culture war
Prescriptions:
• Congress: 43 days of no pay, all work — the reverse shutdown. Non-essential badge mandatory.
• Voters: emotional differentiation — your identity is not the politician who disappointed you today.
• All of us: tell better stories. As Kierkegaard warns: the crowd is untruth. And as McConaughey reminds: keep livin’ — L-I-V-I-N.
Pour something strong. America’s in therapy again.
"Got Thoughts? Outrage? A Diagnosis of Your Own? Send us a text"
Shrink The Nation is where America lies on the couch — and we pour the bourbon.
Hosted by board-certified psychiatrists and mental health pros with backgrounds in military, media, and systems thinking, we break down the psychology behind politics, culture, and public dysfunction.
Smart. Funny. Clinically sharp. Slightly buzzed.
Subscribe, rate, and share if you’re part of the exhausted middle looking for sanity in the noise.
For feedback or hate-listening invitations, hit us at socials@shrinkthenation.com.
Follow us everywhere: @shrinkthenation on X, Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky
Shrink The Nation — On the Couch With America.
This week, America’s longest-running group therapy session takes the couch: Congress — the branch that was supposed to regulate emotion but now runs entirely on it. Once the nation’s prefrontal cortex, it’s devolved into the limbic system on Twitter, acting out every impulse for the cameras while taxpayers foot the therapy bill.
David and Rob break down how we got here:
Then Rob drops the most unsettling pep talk in podcasting history — a detailed walk through the next LISCO (Large-Scale Combat Operations) scenario that explains how a real existential threat could reunify the country. It’s terrifying, logical, and disturbingly hopeful.
Prescriptions (what we actually said):
• Congress: needs a 12-step program for power addiction. Step one — admit you’re powerless over the news cycle.
• C-SPAN Family Therapy: no hearings until every member can say, “I feel frustrated,” instead of, “You’re destroying America.”
• The rest of us: grow up. Do your one job — preferably better than the people you voted for.
Pour something inexpensive, brace yourself for Rob’s war monologue, and try not to Google “LISCO” before bed.
"Got Thoughts? Outrage? A Diagnosis of Your Own? Send us a text"
Shrink The Nation is where America lies on the couch — and we pour the bourbon.
Hosted by board-certified psychiatrists and mental health pros with backgrounds in military, media, and systems thinking, we break down the psychology behind politics, culture, and public dysfunction.
Smart. Funny. Clinically sharp. Slightly buzzed.
Subscribe, rate, and share if you’re part of the exhausted middle looking for sanity in the noise.
For feedback or hate-listening invitations, hit us at socials@shrinkthenation.com.
Follow us everywhere: @shrinkthenation on X, Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky
Shrink The Nation — On the Couch With America.
America’s back on the couch. We open with the shutdown-as-family-drama: unpaid essential workers, trust leaking out “in buckets,” and a Congress that swapped governing for purity tests and cable hits. It isn’t politics; it’s low differentiation with triangulation and emotional cutoffs, and the kids (us) feel it first.
Then the fun-house mirror: an AI-crowned digital king flinging sludge* on critics while a chunk of the country flirts with strongman fantasies. That isn’t satire; it’s validation hunger, narcissistic injury, and shame armor dressed up as memes. We talk about why chaos makes “decisive” feel holy, even when it’s unconstitutional later.
Last pour: TikTok’s privacy wobble. The app softens its “we’ll notify you” promise to law enforcement and reminds everyone that surveillance doesn’t start with punishment; it starts with belonging. Younger users shrug (“we’re watched anyway”), which is how norms shift while you’re dancing. Government anxiety plays helicopter parent, and once monitoring expands, it rarely contracts.
Prescriptions
• Label synthetic media on campaign content as parody/propaganda, big enough to read without pausing.
• Chore-chart Congress: no governing, no allowance. Anyone saying “leverage” while people miss rent does a 48-hour unpaid “reality” internship; anyone planning a “shutdown strategy retreat” funds staff groceries first.
• Satire break: try the “government surveillance starter-pack” costume. Salute the cameras.
• Retire royal cosplay. Republics don’t role-play monarchy.
Bourbon roll call makes a cameo, but the diagnosis is sober: we’re normalizing chaos and calling it content. Let’s stop cosplay monarchy, pay people for work already done, and act like adults in a shared house.
"Got Thoughts? Outrage? A Diagnosis of Your Own? Send us a text"
Shrink The Nation is where America lies on the couch — and we pour the bourbon.
Hosted by board-certified psychiatrists and mental health pros with backgrounds in military, media, and systems thinking, we break down the psychology behind politics, culture, and public dysfunction.
Smart. Funny. Clinically sharp. Slightly buzzed.
Subscribe, rate, and share if you’re part of the exhausted middle looking for sanity in the noise.
For feedback or hate-listening invitations, hit us at socials@shrinkthenation.com.
Follow us everywhere: @shrinkthenation on X, Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky
Shrink The Nation — On the Couch With America.
Tonight’s clinic isn’t about policy points; it’s about the psychology underneath the headlines. We unpack three stories and the defenses they expose:
Prescriptions
• Treat snubs like adults: no conspiracy, no tantrum; regulate before you public-post.
• In groups, draw the line: “boys will be boys” ends where dehumanization starts; speak up or leave.
• Protect protest, reject force-first fantasies; reward leaders who de-escalate.
• Personal sanity plan: widen inputs, lower reactivity, and keep humor that punches up, not down.
"Got Thoughts? Outrage? A Diagnosis of Your Own? Send us a text"
Shrink The Nation is where America lies on the couch — and we pour the bourbon.
Hosted by board-certified psychiatrists and mental health pros with backgrounds in military, media, and systems thinking, we break down the psychology behind politics, culture, and public dysfunction.
Smart. Funny. Clinically sharp. Slightly buzzed.
Subscribe, rate, and share if you’re part of the exhausted middle looking for sanity in the noise.
For feedback or hate-listening invitations, hit us at socials@shrinkthenation.com.
Follow us everywhere: @shrinkthenation on X, Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky
Shrink The Nation — On the Couch With America.
We’re evolving the show: no lecturing from a leather chair, more real psychology in real time. The country’s back on the couch and we’re putting the headlines through the clinic: identity, projection, shame, power, and why everyone’s nervous system is fried.
This week’s case files
Prescriptions (usable, not performative)
Comic relief, because you need it:
Bourbon roll call: Old Crow vs Evan Williams, both bottom-shelf, both discussed with more honesty than Congress brings to a CR vote.
"Got Thoughts? Outrage? A Diagnosis of Your Own? Send us a text"
Shrink The Nation is where America lies on the couch — and we pour the bourbon.
Hosted by board-certified psychiatrists and mental health pros with backgrounds in military, media, and systems thinking, we break down the psychology behind politics, culture, and public dysfunction.
Smart. Funny. Clinically sharp. Slightly buzzed.
Subscribe, rate, and share if you’re part of the exhausted middle looking for sanity in the noise.
For feedback or hate-listening invitations, hit us at socials@shrinkthenation.com.
Follow us everywhere: @shrinkthenation on X, Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky
Shrink The Nation — On the Couch With America.
The “national divorce” fantasy sounds tidy until you run it through family systems: cutoffs, triangulation, custody battles, and a court stuck parenting two furious adults. Translation: America doesn’t need a split; it needs differentiation. Keep your values, lower the reactivity, stop outsourcing maturity to the judiciary.
What we do in this episode
Prescriptions
It’s not kumbaya. It’s grown-up conflict skills for a country that keeps threatening to move out.
"Got Thoughts? Outrage? A Diagnosis of Your Own? Send us a text"
Shrink The Nation is where America lies on the couch — and we pour the bourbon.
Hosted by board-certified psychiatrists and mental health pros with backgrounds in military, media, and systems thinking, we break down the psychology behind politics, culture, and public dysfunction.
Smart. Funny. Clinically sharp. Slightly buzzed.
Subscribe, rate, and share if you’re part of the exhausted middle looking for sanity in the noise.
For feedback or hate-listening invitations, hit us at socials@shrinkthenation.com.
Follow us everywhere: @shrinkthenation on X, Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky
Shrink The Nation — On the Couch With America.
No bourbon this round. We open by defining political violence clearly — threats, doxing, coordinated harassment, assaults, plots, and targeted property destruction tied to political identity or institutions — and set the only scoreboard that matters: fewer credible threats, fewer doxings, fewer plots, slower rumor timelines, fewer injuries per event.
Then we map the heat sources. History says the temperature spikes in certain cycles; today’s mix of economic strain plus culture-war identity fights is a nasty amplifier. We break down the psychology that tilts people toward violence: tribalism as a defense when you feel unsafe, projection and splitting that reinforce echo chambers, and cognitive dissonance that often resolves as lashing out instead of rethinking.
Platforms pour gasoline on all of it: outrage travels fastest, copycat risk is real, and algorithmic rabbit holes move people from grievance to permission. Even naming perpetrators can fuel the contagion. We also distinguish mass-chaos fame-seeking from targeted political violence justified by identity; both are fed by the same pressure cooker.
Prescriptions (what you can actually do)
• Re-humanize locally. Spend time offline with people you share a town, school, or service with. It gets harder to hate the person you know.
• Widen inputs when certainty spikes. Don’t marinate in one-sided feeds; curiosity is the antidote to fervor.
• Cool the loop. Slow rumor timelines and avoid gratuitous naming that drives copycats.
• Hold speech and norms at once. Defend free speech while refusing dehumanization and tribal score-settling.
• Leadership matters. Reward leaders who turn the thermostat down; ignore those farming fear for clicks.
Not therapy or medical advice. But it is a sober map back to a country where disagreement isn’t a prelude to violence.
"Got Thoughts? Outrage? A Diagnosis of Your Own? Send us a text"
Shrink The Nation is where America lies on the couch — and we pour the bourbon.
Hosted by board-certified psychiatrists and mental health pros with backgrounds in military, media, and systems thinking, we break down the psychology behind politics, culture, and public dysfunction.
Smart. Funny. Clinically sharp. Slightly buzzed.
Subscribe, rate, and share if you’re part of the exhausted middle looking for sanity in the noise.
For feedback or hate-listening invitations, hit us at socials@shrinkthenation.com.
Follow us everywhere: @shrinkthenation on X, Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky
Shrink The Nation — On the Couch With America.
No crystals, no incense. Clinically, the shadow is simple: the traits we refuse to own, exported to somebody else. “We’re the city on a hill; they’re the threat.” When identity feels endangered, denial recruits projection, moral disengagement, and story-bending to keep us “pure.”
We trace how those defenses scale from families to a nation: liberty alongside slavery and Jim Crow; “we liberate” beside the Philippines, Vietnam, Iraq; rugged individualism blessing violence as patriotic; the American Dream on the marquee while inequality and selective memory run backstage. The point isn’t to scold. It’s risk management. Unknown material doesn’t disappear; it organizes behavior.
Receipts included: Tulsa 1921 and the Greenwood cover-up; the MOVE bombing in Philadelphia; how fast cycles and AI-deniable “evidence” help a community memory forget itself; why violence gets framed as freedom; and how immigration mythology collides with actual history and class mobility. Nuance isn’t optional; it’s psychological hygiene.
Prescriptions (usable, not performative):
• Teach the whole story. Re-invest in honest civic history for kids; stop whitewashing the record.
• Run the shadow worksheet. Two columns: accusations you make about the out-group vs evidence of the same in you or your side; add one fix you control.
• Language discipline. Strip dehumanization; slow rumor velocity; keep nonviolence as the only acceptable outlet for grievance.
• Reading list: Michael Harriot’s Black AF History and the young readers’ edition of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States.
Exceptional and flawed can both be true. If America wants the former, it has to own the latter.
"Got Thoughts? Outrage? A Diagnosis of Your Own? Send us a text"
Shrink The Nation is where America lies on the couch — and we pour the bourbon.
Hosted by board-certified psychiatrists and mental health pros with backgrounds in military, media, and systems thinking, we break down the psychology behind politics, culture, and public dysfunction.
Smart. Funny. Clinically sharp. Slightly buzzed.
Subscribe, rate, and share if you’re part of the exhausted middle looking for sanity in the noise.
For feedback or hate-listening invitations, hit us at socials@shrinkthenation.com.
Follow us everywhere: @shrinkthenation on X, Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky
Shrink The Nation — On the Couch With America.
Your feed isn’t a therapist. It’s a slot machine with a PhD in you. We unpack how variable-reward dopamine loops keep you scrolling, why that “next swipe” feels irresistible, and how the feed learns your spikes (anger, fear, validation) to pay you in tiny hits of maybe.
Then the psychology: the algorithm doesn’t invent your defenses, it industrializes them. Projection (“they’re the liars”), splitting (good tribe vs bad tribe), and dodging cognitive dissonance scale up into mass delusions that feel truer than reality because they fit identity. That’s how curated reality turns into civic reality.
We map the Zeigarnik effect (brains hate open loops), autoplay as a craving cue, and why your prefrontal cortex’s brakes fail at midnight doomscroll o’clock. Also: the attention economy, micro-promises to micro-audiences, and the collapse of a shared fact set that democracy needs to function.
Not a doom sermon; a practical one. Humans have panicked over every new medium since Plato complained about writing, and we adapted. Seatbelts for dopamine, guardrails for feeds, and norms that make tech liveable.
Bourbon roll call: Basil Hayden, a high-rye Beam sibling (63% corn, 27% rye, 10% malted barley). Yes, we time-stamped the mash bill so you don’t have to.
Prescriptions
Smart, provocative, clinically grounded. Also petty about autoplay.
Education and entertainment only; not therapy.
"Got Thoughts? Outrage? A Diagnosis of Your Own? Send us a text"
Shrink The Nation is where America lies on the couch — and we pour the bourbon.
Hosted by board-certified psychiatrists and mental health pros with backgrounds in military, media, and systems thinking, we break down the psychology behind politics, culture, and public dysfunction.
Smart. Funny. Clinically sharp. Slightly buzzed.
Subscribe, rate, and share if you’re part of the exhausted middle looking for sanity in the noise.
For feedback or hate-listening invitations, hit us at socials@shrinkthenation.com.
Follow us everywhere: @shrinkthenation on X, Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky
Shrink The Nation — On the Couch With America.
The “have it all” era told women to hustle harder; the algorithm replied with “soft life” and trad-wife aesthetics. We trace how empowerment got repackaged as performance, why the internet keeps selling extremes, and how to set fair, sane rules inside your own house. Also on the docket: Mr. Mom, Mrs. Doubtfire, Dana Scully, and a cruise ship full of red/blue buttons. Because culture never travels alone.
In this episode:
Notes & asides: we also flag headlines about 350,000 Black women exiting the workforce, then live-debunk a related stat in real time, which is how adults do the internet.
"Got Thoughts? Outrage? A Diagnosis of Your Own? Send us a text"
Shrink The Nation is where America lies on the couch — and we pour the bourbon.
Hosted by board-certified psychiatrists and mental health pros with backgrounds in military, media, and systems thinking, we break down the psychology behind politics, culture, and public dysfunction.
Smart. Funny. Clinically sharp. Slightly buzzed.
Subscribe, rate, and share if you’re part of the exhausted middle looking for sanity in the noise.
For feedback or hate-listening invitations, hit us at socials@shrinkthenation.com.
Follow us everywhere: @shrinkthenation on X, Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky
Shrink The Nation — On the Couch With America.
Uncle Sam shows up at 3 a.m., top hat on, eyes red from doomscrolling, convinced the shadows are organized and the neighbors are operatives. We’re not diagnosing a person; we’re reading a national mood. Conspiracies are the crunchy snack for anxious brains, but they don’t make a meal.
First, we draw the clinical line: paranoia is a delusion aimed at “me,” while conspiracist ideation is a subclinical, society-wide suspicion that hidden groups run the show. Then we map the defense mechanisms that light the fuse: splitting into “pure us vs evil them,” and externalizing our own mess onto the out-group.
History check: Salem wasn’t just superstition; it was anxiety plus scapegoats with a body count. Over 200 accused, 20 killed. Panic organizes fear but shreds agency, and we’ve repeated the pattern more than once.
Why now? Because when uncertainty spikes and personal control feels low, conspiracies promise clarity and belonging. They thrive on our pattern-hungry brains and negativity bias; when paranoia goes mainstream, democracy wobbles.
The cost isn’t abstract. The deeper you chase the dots, the more you hand away agency. You’re “researching,” not repairing anything in front of you.
Prescriptions
• Uncertainty first aid: pause and breathe; verify with lateral reading; talk it out offline with a trusted person. Slower is saner.
• Occam’s Razor + X-Files: prefer the simple, human-error explanation; save the cinematic cabals for reruns.
• Re-entry plan: if someone chooses to leave a conspiracy community, welcome them back. Belonging is the antidote to the rabbit hole.
Bourbon roll call: a wheated pour to start, because even hard topics go down better when the mash bill isn’t trying to fight you.
"Got Thoughts? Outrage? A Diagnosis of Your Own? Send us a text"
Shrink The Nation is where America lies on the couch — and we pour the bourbon.
Hosted by board-certified psychiatrists and mental health pros with backgrounds in military, media, and systems thinking, we break down the psychology behind politics, culture, and public dysfunction.
Smart. Funny. Clinically sharp. Slightly buzzed.
Subscribe, rate, and share if you’re part of the exhausted middle looking for sanity in the noise.
For feedback or hate-listening invitations, hit us at socials@shrinkthenation.com.
Follow us everywhere: @shrinkthenation on X, Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky
Shrink The Nation — On the Couch With America.
We invited psychiatrist Allison to finish the round. She arrives with receipts and zero patience, calling out our blind spots and the culture’s. The episode opens with the bourbon roll call (Angel’s Envy, Jim Beam Black Label, and Allison’s lemon seltzer) and a confession: bringing a woman into a conversation about men wasn’t optional; it was overdue.
Allison introduces the Smurfette Principle and why tokenism distorts the narrative, then pushes past evo-psych shortcuts to how patriarchy actually operates in daily life. Drinking game included.
We also deconstruct the headlines about a “male loneliness epidemic.” Allison points out the numbers aren’t the story you’ve been sold, and we hash out what loneliness really tracks in 18–28 year olds.
Prescriptions:
• Read Chanel Miller’s Know My Name (or start with her middle-grade book if you need a softer on-ramp).
• Listen to one woman. Then listen to another. Yes, that counts.
• Men 18–28: before you post, imagine it getting screened by the oldest woman in your family. You’ll type better.
Smart, provocative, clinically sharp, and occasionally bruising. That’s the point.
"Got Thoughts? Outrage? A Diagnosis of Your Own? Send us a text"
Shrink The Nation is where America lies on the couch — and we pour the bourbon.
Hosted by board-certified psychiatrists and mental health pros with backgrounds in military, media, and systems thinking, we break down the psychology behind politics, culture, and public dysfunction.
Smart. Funny. Clinically sharp. Slightly buzzed.
Subscribe, rate, and share if you’re part of the exhausted middle looking for sanity in the noise.
For feedback or hate-listening invitations, hit us at socials@shrinkthenation.com.
Follow us everywhere: @shrinkthenation on X, Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky
Shrink The Nation — On the Couch With America.
Shame used to be a regulator. Now it’s background noise. In this bourbon-fueled consult, David and Rob put “Uncle Sam” on the couch and sort the difference between shame (“I am bad”) and guilt (“I did a bad thing”) and why only one reliably leads to repair. We unpack Nathanson’s compass of shame (withdrawal, self-attack, avoidance, other-attack) and how those last two blow up our politics and relationships.
Then we zoom out: social media’s confessional culture gives a quick hit of validation, followed by 2 a.m. regret and next-day loneliness, while partisan incentives reward riding out scandal instead of resigning. Result: a post-policy era where words are theater and hypocrisy barely stings.
Prescriptions you can actually use:
• Before you post, ask: am I confessing, performing, or connecting?
• Use a 24-hour rule on anything personal or inflammatory.
• Write down your values and hold yourself (and your leaders) to them at the ballot box.
Also featuring Crow 86 in a plastic bottle, Horse Soldier for contrast, and the required roast of pajama pants in public.
"Got Thoughts? Outrage? A Diagnosis of Your Own? Send us a text"
Shrink The Nation is where America lies on the couch — and we pour the bourbon.
Hosted by board-certified psychiatrists and mental health pros with backgrounds in military, media, and systems thinking, we break down the psychology behind politics, culture, and public dysfunction.
Smart. Funny. Clinically sharp. Slightly buzzed.
Subscribe, rate, and share if you’re part of the exhausted middle looking for sanity in the noise.
For feedback or hate-listening invitations, hit us at socials@shrinkthenation.com.
Follow us everywhere: @shrinkthenation on X, Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky
Shrink The Nation — On the Couch With America.
Pour a glass of bourbon and settle in: we separate persuasion from propaganda, starting with David’s cold open that lands the thesis—propaganda isn’t posters, it’s the background noise telling you who to fear and what’s “obviously” true. It doesn’t argue; it feels, repeats until it sounds true, and wraps itself in identity and duty. We map the three levers every campaign pulls—repetition, fear/anger, and identity/duty—then trace how they’re working on your brain in real time.
From sunk cost and anxiety relief to why leaving a tribe can feel worse than death, Keith lays out the individual psychology that makes simple stories so sticky. Allison and Rob bring it home with the modern twist: propaganda has been outsourced to the group chat—sometimes to Aunt Cindy—and the network effects are brutal. David drops the math on how a single WhatsApp forward can hit millions in minutes, which is exactly why “feels true” keeps beating “is true.” We close with a practical spotter’s guide for when propaganda tips into conspiracy: C.O.N.S.P.I.R.
Pop Culture & References
Thomas Paine’s pamphlets → the OG push notification.
Chomsky and “violence to dictatorships” → the democracy contrast.
“Lord of the Flies” → quick sting into governance and group psychology.
Edward Bernays (Freud’s nephew) → modern advertising’s daddy.
Goebbels/illusory truth → lies repeated into “truth.”
Bill of Rights as neutral propaganda → when systems use the same tools.
Episode Highlights
Separate persuasion from propaganda; both use emotion, only one is trying to collapse your choices.
The Three Levers: repetition, fear/anger, identity/duty.
Why sunk cost and anxiety relief make simple stories irresistible; why leaving a tribe hurts.
From ministries to micro-voices: the propagandist is your group chat now.
Printing press → social feeds: reach without budgets, responsibility, or brakes.
C.O.N.S.P.I.R.: a field test to flag conspiracy bait before you boost it.
Prescription
Watch a little C-SPAN to recalibrate your sense of “how things actually work,” then read 1984 with a stiff drink.
Add one literary palate cleanser: Gogol’s “The Overcoat.”
Model better conversations: John Ronson’s Things Fell Apart for compassionate curiosity across divides.
Before you share, pull two or three outside sources; if you feel angry, pull a third. Start with Snopes. Nobody is immune.
Short version: it’s not a trench-coat guy anymore. It’s your aunt. Use the levers to see the levers.
"Got Thoughts? Outrage? A Diagnosis of Your Own? Send us a text"
Shrink The Nation is where America lies on the couch — and we pour the bourbon.
Hosted by board-certified psychiatrists and mental health pros with backgrounds in military, media, and systems thinking, we break down the psychology behind politics, culture, and public dysfunction.
Smart. Funny. Clinically sharp. Slightly buzzed.
Subscribe, rate, and share if you’re part of the exhausted middle looking for sanity in the noise.
For feedback or hate-listening invitations, hit us at socials@shrinkthenation.com.
Follow us everywhere: @shrinkthenation on X, Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky
Shrink The Nation — On the Couch With America.