Not My Fault: The Psychology of Dodging Responsibility

David (00:00) Apparently responsibility now comes with a receipt. You don't have to fix anything. You just have to prove you were there. And that's where this week's conversation kept taking us. Candidates trying to get some distance without losing their place in the family, Congress announcing that the work is done, military leadership putting toughness on display. What does any of that actually change? And what might it spare somebody from having to feel? Of course, we get something out of these stories too. Somebody to blame? Somebody to believe in. Sometimes even a terrible prediction feels easier to sit with than I don't know what's going to happen. So Robbie and I are putting the country on the couch and asking who's carrying what here? The fear, the anger, the responsibility. This is shrink the nation. Let's go. David (01:25) All right, hey, welcome back to Shrink the Nation. I'm David. I am a board-certified psychiatrist with over 20 years in the military. And today I am drinking a nice big cup of coffee. It is working out nicely for me so far. We'll see how that goes. Robbie, what you got? Rob (01:42) Hey. it's Rob Three decades in the military, three decades in psychiatry. I am also drinking a nice big cup of black coffee this morning. David (01:53) And Robbie, I'm gonna say you're looking good today. You're looking jacked. Just Rob (01:57) Yeah. I I David (01:59) fucking stacked. You been in the gym, buddy? Rob (02:00) I've been hitting it hard. Hard. David (02:03) yeah so Rob (02:04) Yeah. David (02:04) we're gonna try this avatar thing, see how it works, get some recording, maybe make it interesting for people watching us on YouTube. So if you wanna see how Jacked Robbie looks now, either check out our YouTube Rob (02:13) I don't know. David (02:14) or check out our comics. Rob (02:15) Yeah, I've been hitting the roids and the gym. So we're good. David (02:18) Yeah. Simultaneously. All right. Well, we do have a few stories this week, but I think the goal is to get underneath those stories, Robbie. What does it look like when a person does X, Y, or Z? What might they be trying to feel or trying not to feel? And how do the rest of us get pulled into it? So we're asking this week, who owns the mess and how do we decide? We'll give you the what, then we're gonna spend some time on the why. We may disagree, we'll see, but that's part of that conversation. So I'm ready. Let's do this. Rob (02:52) Yes. David (02:53) Okay. Robbie, if we put the country on the couch this week, what would you be listening for underneath all of it? Rob (03:00) So i if we had the country, on at least on my couch, in in general, and I think probably our our tens of listeners have this sense, things are a mess right now. and we can just kind of tick off on our fingers, all the things that are not going well. everything from you know, f the economy, oil prices, we're still in a war. There's just so many things. and I think there's a good portion of the population that's in a position where, we all have these things that we'd rather not admit, but I I think so many of our fellow citizens are at a place where they're struggling, where they're saying, maybe I backed the wrong person, maybe I, you know made some bad choices, maybe things aren't turning out quite like I want them to. and they're revising their perspective on it. And that's not an easy thing to do. In fact it's an uncomfortable place to sit. So if the country are on the couch, I think it would be a little anxious. David (03:57) let's look at a couple of different things. I'm interested in more than just what's going on, I really wanna know what's the expectation from the different parties. not just what are they doing, but why are they doing it or why do we think they might be doing the things that they're doing? is there an end goal there? is it something that they're trying to convey to other people? Or is it just something they're trying to do for themselves? I don't know that we have the answer to everything, but at the very least we can look at it and maybe open up the discussion in some way to get us to expand the way that our listeners are Viewing this stuff. 'cause I have a feeling, Robbie. Not a lot of MAGA people listening to us right now. So their anxiety may not be Rob (04:35) yeah, it's so funny to me, because when we we first started this, we really tried to be studious about being nonpartisan. interestingly, I I think at our heart of hearts, we are nonpartisan. the issue is that So much of what we end up talking about is the the psychology underneath behavior. And right now there's just seemingly a lot of examples coming out of the MAGA movement that ends up drawing our attention. it's not that the left is pristine, they're not pure, but there's some rather glaring dissonance inconsistencies that come out of the maga side that end up drawing our attention. David (05:15) I mean, I think you said that really nicely. I would clean up what you just said too. The left isn't fucking doing anything worth talking about because they're not doing anything right now. it's kind of the way I take it. They're just the MAGA side is it's just ripe with examples. And the left is not giving us a whole lot to talk about. Rob (05:35) Yeah, I guess I disagree with you just a little because I I think the David (05:37) Good. Rob (05:37) left is furiously doing lots of things. They just don't have the same avatar that the right has. So all of the activity the right is coalesced into a person, which ends up drawing the our attention. And that person is doing things like I don't know, building ballrooms, starting wars, threatening Greenland, lots of stuff, man, lots of stuff. Whereas the left, I do think they're furiously doing lots of things. It's just spread out over a great number of people. So there's not the attention grabber that the right has at this point. David (06:14) I guess my perspective and I I'm glad to be wrong, but is it fair to say that what they're doing is not as consequential because they don't have power and the other side, their avatar, is just sucking all the air out of the room otherwise. Rob (06:28) well yeah, I mean and this is just living in the United States, whatever party is out of power, the only thing they have is to complain about how the party in power sucks and isn't doing it well and that they would do better, and then we vacillate, then the next party jumps back into power and then they make their mistakes, whatever. it's just that right now, where we stand is we have a party that came into power based on things such as affordability. They were going to improve the economy, they were going to bring down prices, and they were not gonna get involved in stupid wars. And in its stead, what they have done is worsened the economy, worsened fuel prices. and gotten involved in foreign wars. And on top of that, the leader of the party spends a great deal of time focused on things like, building ballrooms and arcs and granite helicopter pads and the kinds of things that it seems to fly in the face of what the promises were that most of Americans are struggling to pay for groceries and to fill up their gas tanks and then to hear about these you know multi million dollar projects hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah. Okay. David (07:39) billion. No, we're at we're at billions now on a lot of the projects. Yeah. Rob (07:43) it creates trouble. And I don't know if a day goes by in which there's not another scandal of grift of somebody making money off of the governments that in some way that's questionable, that in the past, interestingly, in the past, some of these scandals would have been what everyone was focused on. And now They come and go because there's just so many of them. There's so many examples of these individuals taking advantage of their position to make money that we're at a point we just shrug our shoulders. it's just so common now. this past week, Kim Kimberly Gilfoil, who is our illustrious ambassador to Greece. a new scandal because she has been taking money from some donor in Kentucky under the guise that she was gonna get him a list of things he wanted, all of which were ridiculous, by the way. he wanted the Department of Justice to go after one of his enemies. he wanted FaceTime With the president. he wanted things and she never delivered on him. So he got mad and released some texts messages in which out of the blue, sends him a signal message saying, Hey, I need you to pay off my Amex card for a hundred grand. That would be stunning if it had occurred under a different administration. She would have been fired. it would have been disgraceful. And this week it got maybe fifteen minutes one morning and we moved on. David (09:11) yeah, we live in a weird timeline, but hey, we're a couple of psychiatrist VTubers, so what are you gonna do? Rob (09:17) That's true. David (09:18) All right. let's get to our topics and we'll see what happens. So if anybody who's living the United States is unaware, the midterms are coming up and they're coming up pretty quick. But Reuters had looked at 62 competitive congressional races and found that there were candidates putting some distance between themselves and Trump in about 41. this is the Republican candidates. But that includes two different things: disagreeing with the policy or just playing down that connection. So they found policy differences in about 23 races. be clear, taking the picture off the website doesn't necessarily mean That you would vote differently. So let's look at the relationship here. Somebody wants a little distance from the family without losing their place in it. We know that situation. Robbie, what does it look like psychologically when somebody wants some distance from their group, but still needs to belong to it? Rob (10:09) well in a healthy group, that's not a terrible problem. In a healthy group that can tolerate a little bit of dissension, and a healthy group that can disagree, within a certain realm, it's not that big of a deal. But we have come to see that MAGA is An environment that tolerates very little dissension, if any. we've talked about this multiple times. We've seen multiple examples of people who not only end up being cast out, they're told that they were never part of the group to begin with. jelly roll being a good example we talked about not too awful long ago. I brought this this story. to your attention because I find it just interesting to watch a group who their goal is to win. they want to win their reelection, but they're in a poor position to do so because their leader has made so many bad choices that they have to maintain a membership in the Republican MAGA world but also try to appeal to a vast majority of the Americans who no longer support that. we're down to what is it latest polls like thirty two percent of Americans support Donald Trump now. so how do you run Appealing to keep the thirty two percent, you gotta keep those folks. You need your voters, but then appeal to that, sixty eight percent that is up for grabs. and I I just I thought, gosh, if I was running as a Republican, what a miserable frickin' experience that would be. David (11:41) Yeah, no doubt. this has this sort of Thanksgiving dinner where you got rich grandpa who the family just doesn't like. So you want to appease grandpa because you need to stay in that will, and he doesn't have long to go. But you still want to eat turkey dinner because grandpa doesn't cook. And the voters right now, that thirty-two percent, that thirty-three percent that adores him no matter what he does, that's not everyone who's gonna show up to vote. So when they're trying to separate themselves, I think he touched on the possibility of protectionism for themselves. But when you say that he's making bad choices, I think that really just goes to what the voting population thinks, Because right now, if you're a Republican congressperson or senator, it's really difficult to say that I think these choices are bad because you've allowed all of them, you voted along with them. But now you're looking at the electorate, the voting population, and saying, you don't like these choices. So Let me now say that I agree with you and I'm gonna vote the way that you want me to vote in the future. Rob (12:46) Well, I think that's the thing that I find most irritating in our political system there's this sort of psychologically healthy level of disagreement. within a party, there is supposed to be a healthy level of variance in their stance. they're supposed to have certain planks. that the party stands for and that all of their politicians would concur with. Now, interestingly, since 2016, the Republican Party has done away with this. they don't have party planks anymore. they don't have policy anymore. They have a man. that they follow Donald Trump. And we can listen to Donald Trump and we can kind of infer what they stand for now. but interestingly, listening to Donald Trump, you sort of get a variation any given time, what he stands for, because he plays the crowd. What he stands for is really feeding out to the crowd. And if he hears the right response from that crowd, that's what he focuses in on. And that's what he stands for. And over time it shifts. So they don't really have that. They have Donald Trump, which puts them in a difficult position because standing for the party, being a member of the party means supporting Donald Trump. But we have these politicians now who are in Washington voting for things and then going home and running and saying the exact opposite. So it creates a frustrating dissonance for me, because it smacks of lying that in a normal timeline, under regular order, when we have normal politicians doing normal things, a little bit of disagreement or them showing some independence, that would be normal. But when they fall in line completely in Washington and then go home and say the exact opposite, it just screams dishonesty and dishonorable conduct and lying. it's striking. It's really striking when you have a politician voting seven times. To continue the war in Iran and then going home and running on a platform that says, We need to end this war in Iran. That's crazy. David (14:59) it gives me flashbacks to Seinfeld where Jerry's been asked to take a polygraph and he tries to go to George to figure out how to beat the polygraph. And all George tells him is it's not a lie if you don't think it's a lie. when you're sitting in Congress and you're in DC and you're voting against ending the war in Iran over and over and over again, and then you go home and you hear from your constituents who are saying, You gotta end this damn war. Maybe the intention is there. Hey, you're right. This is bad. I agree with you. And they believe it. It's just they keep going back and doing the same thing. So is it a lie if they believe it when they say it? that's a tough one, but that's what I wonder. And maybe they maybe they are just flat out lying. I can't tell you what they are thinking, but you gotta wonder, do they believe it in that moment? Rob (15:53) No, I don't think they believe it in that moment. I think that's complete. I mean, you know, you're being kind to them. Like Mike Rogers. Mike Rogers, who's a Republican Senate candidate in Michigan. he's running against Abdul Al Said. and this is a guy who is, died in the wool MAGA. But now all of a sudden he's running ads in Michigan saying, Canada's not our enemy. we've gotta do away with these tariffs, and I'm gonna bring both parties together to end this disagreement with Canada. but in practice he has supported a man who consistently speaks negatively about Canada, threatens Canada, challenges Canada, picks trade wars with Canada. For no good reason. and then he goes back to his home state and in an effort to be a competitive candidate says something completely different from what he actually does. And we just talked about this in the last few weeks. I find it anger inducing actually because it's treating the electorate like they're stupid. Like they're just dumb enough that they're not going to fact check him at all. They're not going to have any memory of the fact that he absolutely 100% supported a man who actually is now putting him in the position to lie about his stance in order to gain votes. It's ridiculous. And the entire Republican Party is in this position right now. That they're in their home districts. running on a platform that in order to be competitive, at least for 62% of them, or whatever the percentages fell out, in order to be competitive, they have to say things that are completely contrary to what the leader of their party does every day. Every day he's saying something that they then have to run against. And that That has to be I mean, if I was a political strategist, I I think every day I would get up just scared to death. what's the next thing the president's gonna say that we're gonna have to actually run against. it's a very odd position for them to be in as politicians. David (18:05) Yeah, but i they've gotta be getting used to it at this point, this isn't new. This has been the entirety of this administration and the one previously. it's just gotten to the point of, well, let's just ignore the past. Let's just not talk about what we said before or what we did before. Let's focus on what I'm telling you is gonna happen next. And then when that doesn't come to fruition Don't worry about that. It'll be different next time. This just smacks of the abusive spouse, lover, whatever, who smacks the person, then says I'm sorry, and says it'll never happen again until it happens again later that week. Rob (18:43) Well, you know, if we reel back in time, back in the early weeks of our show, we did an entire show on cognitive dissonance. And when you're trying to hold two ideas at the same time, which is pretty normal. I think it was Einstein that said intelligence is the ability to hold two contradictory ideas at once. and we all do this. it's kind of part and parcel of life that we have to manage contradictory thoughts and make them make sense in our life because you only get a single decision. So you've got multiple motivators and those motivators can be contradictory and then you have to make a decision on it. We manage this all the time, but the level of dissonance that exists right now in the MAGA world just it's palpable. you can feel it. that this party that ran on, we're gonna unearth Jeffrey Epstein files, we're going to root out the deep state, we're gonna get rid of corruption, we're gonna not engage in foreign wars, we're gonna improve the economy. it's gonna be a golden age of America again. only I can do this. Only I can save the United States. And then to watch us drift into worse and worse economic status every time they go to the pumps and they're paying their 450 a gallon for gas. the dissonance has to Be nearly creating a stroke. I mean, they have to be on the edge of a stroke at all times. David (20:17) our show could be called cognitive dissonance. that's just what we could call this. But maybe we're really too skewed and what we think we're looking at just isn't what we're looking at because there's that thirty two percent approval rating. In spite of everything you just said, does that lead us to maybe we should be accepting the fact that this administration didn't win because of the economy? This administration didn't win because of no foreign wars. This administration didn't win because of Jeffrey Epstein. This administration won because The 32% who was going to vote for this administration no matter what was doing it solely out of fuck that guy. And by that guy, I mean the other side. Fuck them. because we've said this before, and I think this has been brought up other times in people who have really taken a deep, deep look at Donald Trump. And The one consistent thing that you keep seeing is that it's not that he's liked by the right people, it's that he's disliked by the right people. I'm going to vote for you, not because I believe in you, but because that guy over there hates you. Rob (21:28) yes, yes. No, no, I concur with you that he is the avatar of anger, and there is a underpinning of anger inside the country, and there's a good reason for it. my oldest son and I chat about this constantly, actually, because he's fascinated by it and he Also is set to inherit a world that is very uncertain, and he is old enough and smart enough to recognize these uncertainties. But we are at a time that you know the closest analogy is the the industrial revolution, so the late 1800s, plus the birth of nuclear weapons. so take the industrial revolution. And add in the Manhattan Project, and that's where we sit right now. So it's not only that the social structure of the world is changing, the economic structure of the world is changing, and we're toying with a technology that could end the world all at once. And go ahead and throw in climate change on top of that. So there's some really massive forces at play in the world and they are coalescing at this point. here we sit in the the mid-2020s. Back in 2016, these were over the ridge line. we heard the thunder. We didn't know exactly what the storm was going to look like because we couldn't see it coming. But now we can see it coming. We see what we're facing, that we sit at a time in which AI and technology in general is completely changing the world. And the jobs that, my generation's fathers and grandfathers had, that when they were growing up, when I was growing up, it was just a given that, I work at the power plant. My granddad worked at the power plant. My dad worked at the power plant. I'm gonna work at the power plant. It was a given. And now for my generation, we can't say that for our kids. We have no idea what our kids are gonna do. And for many of us, we realize a robot will be doing our job in the next decade. now a lot of people may not put words to that, but it creates such a tension, such a fear. That anger is the bodyguard of fear. So we had a very angry electorate, and we have had a very angry electorate in the last decade plus. And they voted out of anger for a man who just can represent anger. he makes an entire life out of grievance. out of saying, I'm going to be your guy. I'm going to go out and get them. Who's them? I don't know. but absolutely. this is a fascinating time politically because again, come right around 2016, we stopped voting for policies. We started voting for a man, just a guy Who was pissed off? David (24:25) I think we call that vibe voting. All right, so we're gonna let's circle back to Congress for a minute. on September sixteenth, twenty twenty six, Mike Johnson sent the House home a day early saying, quote, the house has done its work. All right. try to be serious, Robbie. Come on. yeah. Rob (24:46) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. David (24:47) The delay of that was after there was an effort to impeach Hegsith. But Johnson says that's not why we left. And hey, let's you know take it face value. But now Congress had already passed and I ran withdrawal resolution in both chambers in June. but winning that vote didn't settle whether it would actually be carried out. But that's where I want to stay with this. So we've done our work. If somebody says That while the problem is still there, what might they need us to accept? so Robbie, why can winning a vote feel like the job is finished before the thing you voted for has actually happened? Rob (25:22) Yeah, so this is like going into your local Planet Fitness, getting a a membership and then feeling more fit without ever actually using the membership. you just tell yourself, I am now more fit, I'm one of those guys that have a gym membership. That must mean I'm fit. it's ridiculous. it's performative. they can walk away saying we did something even though they know nothing happened. I I can't believe Mike Johnson can look into a camera and say something like that and then go home and look at himself in the mirror and say, I did a good job today. I'm a hell of a speaker. I'm probably gonna go down in history. I don't understand I don't know how he gets up in the morning and continues to function as a human with this level of nonsense. David (26:14) Don't know that I could tell you why or how he keeps functioning other than that seems to be the job having somebody in that role who is able to do that. we've seen plenty of examples of congressional leadership saying one thing and then doing a completely different other one. And so it definitely has a feeling of being very well aware of the short attention span, short memory, or just lack of fucks given by the electorate on stuff like this. But there's another effect that I think happens in Congress that we don't always think about, which is when you say, well We voted and we said the Iran war has to stop, but it doesn't. do they just get the warm and fuzzies from well, we told them to stop and they didn't do it, so I've done enough. This is like parenting your kid and saying, you stop doing that? And then when they keep doing it, saying, Well, I tried. I don't control Rob (27:16) Yeah. David (27:16) them. Rob (27:17) Hey Johnny, stay out of the road. and then when he gets smashed by a semi-truck saying, Well, I told Johnny to stay out of the road. So it's not really my fault. I have no responsibility. So I mean that's the thing about a vote. So you can count a vote, you can say, Here was this clear event, we counted it, we announced it, we put our name on it, we did this. But the work is actually enforcing it, following up on it. and that's where there's no effort right now. Yes, there is a resolution passed by both houses saying that we have to withdraw from Iran. But they're not enforcing it. They're not utilizing the tools. So they can go home and they can campaign on this if they want, and say, I said we're ending this war. But they didn't do the hard work, which is basically defunding it. here's the ramifications. And I am not a historian. I didn't even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. So I can't even claim any kind of expertise there, but I I don't know of a time in history in which the executive branch so clearly refuses to be the executive branch. the executive branch is supposed to execute the laws that are passed by the legislative branch and the executive branch is not doing that it is refusing to follow the direction of the legislative branch and it is creating law based on its actions through presidential decree which at this point feels more like royal decree this is what we're gonna do I mean how many examples are there of the executive branch using funds that have been appropriated for one thing And then they are illegally using it for a different thing. That is illegal. when Congress passes here's X number of dollars for this thing, you have to use it for that thing. And our executive branch is just treating it all like it's this open fund, their piggy bank that he can use for anything. it's stunning. And it's left to the legislative branch to enforce and they're just not. So yeah, they can fake it and say they did something so that they can face their voters, but I don't know how they live with themselves. David (29:30) Well, that's a great question. what strikes me is that when you look at a second order effect of having them leave Washington a day early, putting the vote as to whether or not to impeach Hegseth. it left that on the table and pushed that down the road. from a Republican perspective, what was said was this is a nonsense vote. This is just trying to grab headlines or whatever. From a Democratic perspective, what was the reason? I mean I think we would all look at that and say, clearly they weren't going to impeach Hegseth. and this was brought about by a Republican, right? This was brought about by Thomas Massey. So it's still even that particular vote has that overarching sense of what I think the entire Congress is doing right now, which is creating an illusion of action. why do Democrats want to vote on whether or not to impeach Hegseth? I think they want to vote so that they can show who would actually do it, That's it. They just want the vote so that there can be a record of who would actually think that he needs to be impeached. The same thing with all the Iran war votes. It wasn't about them actually thinking that this administration was going to follow along. Even those on the Republican side who voted to end the war in Iran there was no attachment of anything to it other than to say, well, I did vote for that. I was one of the seven people who did actually vote in that way. even though they knew I would assume or that it wouldn't have any real effect. It's all about creating an image or creating a record. Or being able to say, Well, I did this, and it's not my fault. I tried. I tried to stop Johnny from running in the street because I told him not to. The fact that he got hit by a car is just not my fault anymore. because there was no teeth behind me telling him not to run in the street. Rob (31:19) Yeah. David (31:20) well, there's something intellectually dishonest about all of it, because Congress has no apparent intention of doing anything about this executive branch right now, everything they do is just theater. Rob (31:34) Yeah, and with our analogy with kids, so one would think if a parent were to say that, hey, I told little Johnny to stay out of the road, the consequence is they lost their kid. our assumption is as human beings, many of our tens of listeners probably have children, that the pain of that would be a consequence for us. So, you know, it's a ridiculous analogy, which you know you specialize in. It's so yeah. David (31:58) No, but there's a psychological piece to that too. Because why would you even bother to tell Johnny not to play in the street if you weren't planning to stop him from playing in the street? You're not doing it because you actually think that you're gonna get him to not get hit by a car. You're doing it so that when he gets hit by that semi and you go to that funeral and you're devastated because of the bad outcome. You can still have that in the back of your mind. Well, I tried. I told him not to. I don't know why he didn't listen. I'm shifting the blame of the consequence to somebody else so that I don't have to take on that full responsibility. There's a deeply psychological piece to that, which it's protection for your own mental sanity to say I tried. He didn't listen. He ignored me. There was nothing else that I can do. So at the very least, it's not my fault, right? It's that shifting of blame. And I think that's what Congress does all the time now. It's a shifting of blame. And what's interesting, I think, is that whether you're on the side that voted for it or you're on the side that voted against it, the ability to shift the blame. Turns into this collective. Well, I did vote to maintain the Iran war because I don't think they should have nuclear weapons. But I don't like the war. So I do think it should end, but it's not my fault that more people voted to not end it. Or it's not my fault that nobody put any appropriations into the bill, or it's not my fault X, Y, or Z. we see this with people where you want to be able to distance yourself from the outcome by saying, Well, it's not really my responsibility. I can only do what I believe in, which is I'm not gonna go grab him and physically pull him out of the street. He needs to be himself. But I am gonna tell him that there's a bad outcome possible, and so when it happens, that was his choice and not mine. Rob (34:00) Well, I guess there's an element of good parenting that's the case, but we have to select our consequences and lethal ones usually you step in. however, in this case we're circling something that I guess I feel and I maybe haven't put to words is that There is a difference between being a full-fledged fucking adult and being responsible and taking the steps necessary to prevent a certain consequence. And then on the other side, just preventing yourself from being blamed. And that's what it feels like right now. Is that they're not being full-fledged adults. They're not taking responsibility. They're not saying, we have a job. We are a coequal branch of the government. We have a responsibility. The consequences to this nation are ours to bear. They're saying, not our fault. Can't blame us. We did our thing. and there is a huge difference there, and it is the difference between being an adult, a responsible adult, and being a child. And it's a child's approach to say, you can't blame me. Adults try to prevent the consequence because we take responsibility. Children Try to prevent themselves from being blamed because they don't feel like the consequence is theirs. And that's what we're seeing is childlike behavior, psychologically primitive childlike behavior, in that no one's responsible for the outcome of this nation. They just don't want to be blamed for it. David (35:40) Yeah, I think you I think you're right. it's it definitely has it has that feeling to it, but it at some point, saying, well I did something, so it's not my fault when you are the parent. you know that as a therapist If you were seeing this person in therapy for that, what would you tell them? versus what you might tell maybe the other parent? Rob (36:04) So, let's keep running with this analogy. This I told Johnny David (36:07) Yes. Rob (36:07) not to, and Johnny's now dead. and I'm seeing that parent for therapy that what I would know was you know, that that 3 AM when the dark is just hanging over them. And it's just them and their thoughts and their fears and the pain of existence that really what they're thinking is this is my fault. I did this. They're blaming themselves. And their defense mechanism is to say, well, I told him I told him to not do it. He did it anyway. And they might develop an elaborate scheme. To basically deflect that blame and put it over on to the child because that psychologically is more palatable. They can live with that. If I was seeing this person for therapy, the work would be shifting that responsibility back to them and facing it, facing that they failed. They failed as a parent, they did not do their job. now they have to accept the consequence. And that would be really hard work. I mean, that would David (37:11) Yeah. Rob (37:11) be pain that would be painful work. and it would be hard. And that's one of the things I guess election season always does this to me. And until this conversation today, I don't know if I've ever articulated or put it together in my head why it frustrates me. But Why it I find it particularly frustrating is this difference between responsibility, between power and and true responsibility. So we have these individuals who are running for office. They want the power. And they run saying things like, I'm going to do this, this, and this. I I'm going to be responsible. But then when they're in office they do things that really just prevent them from being blamed. They're not doing the hard work. They're not digging in. They're not taking responsibility. They're not setting the limit and enforcing it with a consequence. They're just doing a vote and then going home and saying, Congress's work is done. And we see this every election cycle that these politicians will Talk as if they want the power to actually affect an end. We're going to do good things. And then what we end up observing is lots of behaviors that really just prevent them from ever having to accept any responsibility for the outcomes so that they can then run again and say, I'm going to do good things. And The key word for today is frustration. If this was a Sesame Street episode, this would be the key word. the frustration. This episode is brought to you by the letter F. David (38:46) Which is Rob (38:46) Fuck nuts and frustration. So David (38:49) Well, and the grade it would give him. I I guess though, I I would be I feel like I would be missing out if I didn't point out that. the reality is if this situation did occur, you know the parent wouldn't just blame the kid. They would blame the driver of the semi, they'd blame the road, they'd blame the lack of a stop sign or whatever. It wouldn't just be, that's just Johnny's fault. It's Who else can I lay that blame out onto? And they wouldn't necessarily be wrong. I think though that's, and maybe that's the thing we need to also consider is it's not just that. I think the intellectually honest thing to say would be yeah, I I knew that telling Johnny not to play in the street wasn't going to be enough. But it's not incorrect. That there was a driver of a semi who didn't miss Johnny, right? Didn't swerve. There wasn't a stop sign right there at that road, or the speed limit was too high. and you know, I feel like this this parent would actually probably be the person who would try to resolve this by running for Congress. And you'd say, you know what? I think you got the right psyche to run for Congress at this point. Maybe you should. Let's blame everybody else. It it would be. Rob (39:56) Yeah, Johnny's Law. He it would we we would we would yep, we'd be investing in a Johnny's Law. and all of that psychological angst would be poured into doing something when what you should have done was not let the kid go in the road. misappropriated energy is and w we s and David (40:16) Well Rob (40:16) we see that. David (40:17) yeah, but and I think there's there is something weirdly normal to that. maybe not more weird than all there's something very normal to that. but I but I do think and I and maybe and this is this is where the analogy really falls apart. I mean it's such a good one. but Congress isn't a bad parent. Congress's job is at the very least defined to legislate and to hold the other branches of government in check. And and it's clear that they are abdicating that position. But in an individual level, or maybe just the level of the people, looking at it, it does make sense to some extent why you could look at the situations that have happened and say I understand why you think you've done all you can, but you know that's not reality. Anyway, we'll we'll move on. I mean, this is this one's I think this is gonna be ongoing. We'll probably talk about this a lot we'll see what happens in the midterms, right? if Congress decides to take up their duties a little bit more, a little bit more than a bad parent. Okay, so Rob (41:17) Yeah. Well well what no what we'll end up seeing, I mean, if things go as the polls seem to indicate, is where are they going to place their energy? And that energy because there's gonna be a lot, you know, coming out of the midterms if it goes the way, this blue wave that's being predicted, there's gotta be a lot of energy. And is that energy going to be placed in areas that actually make a difference or is it going to be more noise and we'll see. and you know maybe, maybe we'll actually have a little more fodder to talk more about the left when that happens. David (41:53) that would be quite the refreshing change of pace. All right. So let's move this into a different direction for a little bit. Now, on September 30th, 2026, Heggsith gave his state of the force address at Quantico. There were junior officers and enlisted leaders present, and the Wall Street Journal reported that nominees had to meet body composition and grooming standards, along with leadership and professional character criteria. So Appearance was part of the selection, though it wasn't the only requirement. there are proposals behind that presentation: autonomous warfare, installation resilience, and officer training. The Army also reports an October first, twenty twenty six directive establishing a futures and autonomous systems command. That's an action to evaluate. We still have to see what it produces. So Robbie, what does this look like to you psychologically? What might the leadership want us to feel and what might we be asking them to make us feel? Rob (42:47) Well, for our tens of listeners, this is not an atypical speech. That this happens every year. the status of the force is a yearly speech that the secretary of defense gives. so there's nothing atypical necessarily about that. there's nothing atypical about announcing things like a fastcom creation. in fact it's due. it's absolutely required, just given the nature of warfare and how warfare is changing. so that's not atypical. also this focus on meeting fitness and grooming standards Is not atypical. The service has always had fitness and grooming standards, appearance standards. So that's not necessarily atypical. What is slightly atypical, at least in my experience, is that the focus on appearance has shifted. It seems to be a much higher priority. than it has in the past, and that does lead down some roads of comedic gold i in terms of that focus. the other interesting thing or different thing was that watching this became a Department of Defense wide requirement that every service member received a tasker, an individual tasker To watch this, that's not normal. never seen it before. David (44:05) Well, and I think what's maybe missing, if you're not in the military, you haven't been in the military, is that the language that's being used, it's not new. in 2023, under Biden, army leaders were calling for warrior ethos, tougher and higher training standards. Rob (44:22) Absolutely. David (44:22) There was an army reserve competition in 2023 that explicitly emphasized spree de corps and the warrior ethos. So those goals were already there. And so why is the promise of getting our old self back so powerful and what would tell us whether anything is actually being restored? Rob (44:40) I don't know. and this takes me back to you know Make America Great Again, MAGA, which has become a word that means something. It's become a word for one, but it means something that goes beyond what actually stands for. And when I hear MAGA, make America great again, my first question is. Well, when did we stop being great? Or when were we great? so this emphasis on the warrior ethos. The warrior ethos has existed in the soldier's creed for as long as I've been a soldier. so I will place the mission first, I will never accept defeat, I will never quit, I will never leave a fallen comrade. that's the warrior ethos. and it's always existed. So this idea that we have to get back to the warrior ethos, I don't understand it because I don't know when we diverged from it. That's always been part of being a soldier. we've always said mission first, we'll never accept defeat, we will never quit, we'll never leave a fallen comrade. so I I'm I'm not sure. and the implication, I guess, for by the Secretary of Defense is that somehow we've drifted from that, that we're not a force that's governed by the warrior ethos and we gotta get back to it. I don't know. I mean tell me when we drifted away from it because I'd like to know. personally, I I don't know if we ever did. David (46:04) what I think of when we talk about this type of thing is that this administration constantly says the quiet part out loud, but in this situation they have this tendency to run and to highlight the implied parts as well or the things that were already being done in saying, Look, I've changed it. Because I said so. I'm going to talk about something that already exists, that has already existed, that has already been there. But because I'm talking about it now, it's totally different. Because in 2023, there was a big push to reestablish the warrior ethos in the Spree decor. And even then, I was thinking, when has that not been a thing that we've done? And so maybe it's just what every organization does, All I can think of is when a really good football team's head coach retires and they hire a new guy to come in and he says, We're gonna get back to the fundamentals. And it's like, dude, you're already good. You don't need to get back to anything. Just keep doing what you're doing and you're fine. Mike Tomlin won a Super Bowl within his first couple of seasons with the Steelers. They were a great team. I don't think getting back to fundamentals was an issue for any of them. You're already doing it. We're gonna do the Steeler way. Okay. Well, you've been doing the Steeler way. You're the fucking Steelers. Everything you do is the Steelers way. Just go get a quarterback, man. Rob (47:27) Yeah. so I guess there is an element of just just words that maybe don't have a ton of meaning. Look, standards matter. fitness does matter. not because I want everyone to be good looking and have, a nice shoulder to waist ratio. fitness is important. David (47:44) Look who's talking. Rob (47:45) Fitness is important largely because it improves mental resilience and the act of going to war, there is a physicality to it. Hell, just getting your goddamn gear into a war zone, there is a physicality to that because I don't care what arrangements they make To ship you over, there's a great deal of time spent in which it is just up to you and your hands and your back and your legs to move your 100, 150 pounds worth of gear from point A to point B. So the physicality matters, so fitness matters, professional appearance matters. That's been part of the OER officer evaluation reports for as long as I've been in the military. That stuff matters. it is very similar to what you just said, getting back to the fundamentals really doesn't speak whatsoever toward true readiness, though, because you know, readiness comes down to training and maintenance and logistics and leadership. a lot of intangibles that maybe are harder to measure, or at least more complex to measure. we measure logistics and maintenance and training stats. but you know, fundamentally something like leadership. That's a tough one to measure. so yeah, we got to get back to fundamentals. The X's and the O's, David. We got to get back to the X's and the O's. David (49:05) All right. it would be a shame if we talked about this without bringing up the most recent development with the military, which is that the Pentagon recently announced plans to publicly live stream the execution of Nadal Hassan, who was convicted in the 2009 Fort Hood killings. the Army has scheduled the execution for December 3rd, 2026 at 1 p.m. Central. So mark your calendars, folks, following presidential approval. but legal action could certainly affect that day. but on October 10th, Reporting says the White House has not finalized Trump's position on that broadcast, and the platform and viewing rules remain unpublished at this point. So the sentence approval, execution date, final broadcast arrangements, there is they're all different. But just as a reminder, 13 people were killed. survivors and families may have completely different views, and they deserve care in how we discuss this. Supporting lawful punishment and supporting a public broadcast are completely different judgments. But what does broadcasting it add and whose needs should shape that decision? Rob (50:12) know, I found myself thinking a lot about this. I'm honestly not sure what this announcement, this broadcast, what it adds. I have thought about what the goal of this is. and I'm struggling coming up with a goal. what end does this further? other than Pete Heggsess a hard ass. I don't know. so this individual interestingly, he's a psychiatrist and he became radicalized and he ended up taking a weapon into a deployment readiness facility, killed thirteen people, I forget how many were wounded. David (50:48) I think over twenty. Over twenty were wounded. Yeah. Thirteen killed, I think Rob (50:49) Yeah. David (50:51) over twenty were wounded. Rob (50:52) in the exchange he was paralyzed. he has been in prison now since I think 2010. at Fort Leavenworth. He was found guilty and he is guilty. I mean he's guilty of this act. whether he deserves the death penalty or not. Is really even a separate debate that's that's about the death penalty. what sets it apart is the optics of live streaming it. And it does merit some discussion here. And I I want your thoughts on this, David, because I don't know. what the ends are. I know I have lots of friends, three, who were there on that day, and it impacted them and it continues to impact them. and that this announcement has impacted them. and in fact on my to-do list today is to reach out to one of them who's particularly impacted. so I'm not sure what the goal Of live streaming is. David (51:45) I think that's the really difficult thing here is that being critical of the live stream can come across as being critical of other aspects of it. and maybe much in the same way being supportive of the execution itself. could lead somebody to feeling as though there's a justification for the live stream. and I think those are really separate issues. and I think on a personal level, for anybody, we can all understand the feelings that people would have about execution, the death penalty are going to be very personal and skewed by a number of different subtopics. So we're not really getting into that. But looking at the possibility for a live stream broadcast of an execution, I think we got to pull this into context a little bit in that understanding that There haven't been public execution spectacles since like the late 1930s. and even when that did occur, it was the nineteen thirties. The idea of a public execution then, and I believe the last one that occurred was like nineteen thirty-nine, and it was African-American man who was accused or convicted of Raping an elderly white woman, and he was hung in Kentucky, I believe. Is that right? Rob (53:09) I think so. David (53:10) and it and there were 20,000 people who showed up, and it was like a picnic or something. People they were selling cola and sandwiches, and people were joyous in that. But 20,000 people. in person watching a lynching, essentially. I believe that's what it was. I could be wrong. Fact check me. Is so very different than a live streamed broadcast that could reach potentially billions of people. the scale of this has never been seen, at least in the United States. and so I'm just not sure people would understand the potential impact that witnessing an execution can have. I can understand why whether I agree with it or not is irrelevant, but I can understand why somebody whose loved ones were impacted by Anything that ends up leading to the death penalty might want to witness that. I can understand it. but it really gets back to the idea of this public spectacle being made of this thing. Because what they said was we want people to see that. this punishment is what will happen if you do something like that. I have a sneaking suspicion that anybody willing to carry a firearm onto a military installation with the goal of killing as many people as possible has no real serious intention of surviving that. Like I I doubt. And I don't know, I don't know this guy. but I would surmise that at no point during that was he thinking, I'm gonna make it through this. I think he was probably, I would assume, I'm speculating here, but I'm guessing he was thinking, I'm gonna take out as many people as I can, and that's it for me. as you see with a lot of mass shooters, a number of them, I won't say most, I don't know, but a lot of them don't survive the mass shooting themselves. And I think they go into that quite prepared for that. So I don't know that this would even serve as a deterrent for mass shooters, especially not in the military, to say, well, we take this very seriously. Again, it's saying the implied part out loud. And I guess that's the piece of it. Is we take mass shooting seriously. Who has to say that? Who fucking has to actually say those words? If you come to our military installation and shoot a bunch of our soldiers, we're gonna take that pretty seriously, dude. No fucking shit. Rob (55:34) Right. so let me take an opposite side on this just so that we're maybe approaching it at least intellectually honest. because again, my gut instinct on it was emotional. The emotional of it was negative. it felt dystopian to me to live stream. There is an argument to be made that public viewing is about accountability. That we as a people have elected individuals that have passed laws that say execution is an appropriate form of punishment. And we all bear a certain amount of responsibility. And if we're going to conduct these things, then we all should be accountable to actually. witness what the outcomes look like. Now in this case, I think the optic is gonna be horrible because this guy's paralyzed. So I'm just curious, are they gonna have him sit in a wheelchair? are they going to strap him to the wall? I mean, are they gonna stand him up? just the pure optics on it I don't think are gonna probably convey the message that maybe the Pre-analytic thought is that, we're hard, we're doing this. for any future mass shooter, this is what the outcome is you know, 16 years later, 17 years later. But one could make that argument that there is an accountability piece that This is the law of the land. We all have played a role in supporting this, so we should be accountable to it. David (56:59) yes, I can see that perspective. but it's so hard not to get past the optics of it. And I think not knowing the history of everything that Pete Hagsith has done and giving them that kind of benefit of the doubt would be one thing. But it's all a spectacle. All of it. it just has that feeling of Trust me, bro. with nothing behind it. Rob (57:20) The the spect the spectacle. David (57:22) the spectacle, I I think all of it being spectacle, the excessive focus, on physical readiness when we all know that that may not even be the most important part of readiness for the military. the number of push-ups you do, it's important to be able to do push ups, but that's not going to dictate your ability to function in a war zone when drones are coming in. And so what it really strikes me as is that there's this leader who doesn't know how do this job So he ends up focusing on the things that he does know, which is how to make it look like you know something with nothing behind it. And I think that's the same thing here. one would assume there was a reason that they stopped doing public executions in the 1930s, and a big part of it was that people became more critical of the government by doing these executions publicly. and so, it shows a lack of an understanding of the past. and I think that's what we're seeing is that those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat it. And it's just over and over and over again we're seeing examples of an administration failing to look back at history and the cautionary tales that they provide. and it strikes me as Bush league. actually kind of shocking that it keeps happening, I suppose, but we're not learning from the past. can you see a scenario where either A This actually does occur, or be if it did, and I think that's a big if because even now Donald Trump is saying he hasn't actually agreed to this yet and he's mulling it over. but do you see a scenario where this will be used as anything but yet another example of the failure of this administration to promote their policies in a positive way? Way. Rob (59:23) No. we've gone full circle back to what is the purpose? what is the end state? What are we trying to communicate? and I just don't know. there's an argument to be made that all executions should be witnessed to some degree, that they shouldn't be done in the dark. we do not want to give the state that kind of power to take people out back and put a bullet in their head. they should be observed. I don't know if they should be live streamed. the confluence of technology capability, and maybe we just don't know exactly how to use it quite right at this point. I don't think live streaming it where Know, for whatever purposes, everyone, to include children, are gonna have access to this. so I'm not sure. I really don't. I have found myself thinking about this and and I am truly of two minds. On part of me there is an accountability piece. I can concur that it shouldn't happen in the dark. Part of me says, What are they trying to communicate about this? And it just ends up feeling to me like spectacle for spectacle's sake. It feels like an MMA fight in the backyard of the White House. It feels like an Indy five hundred race in downtown Washington DC. It feels like a military parade in Washington DC. It it just feels like spectacle. David (1:00:44) this is Jurassic Park, They got so caught up in whether or not they could, they failed to consider whether or not they should. And it has this feeling of there wasn't somebody else in the room who would say, Yeah, dude, this is a really bad idea. Like that Halloween costume. That glows in the dark that's a really cool idea. But did you look at the costume and it makes everyone look like they have blackface? So maybe we shouldn't put this one on our website or even sell it. it's a lack of a counter viewpoint within the administration to say, yeah, okay, that sounds cool, I suppose, but did you consider it from this angle? And you may have brought up just now maybe the most important piece was do you really want your children in your country watching an execution? Because you know they will. You know? Rob (1:01:38) absolutely. this is gonna be memed. it's gonna be screen captured and that moment of the bullet entering his chest is going to make its way and kids are gonna share it. And I do think that the second order effects there are more profound than just whatever they're trying to convey by this spectacle, it will carry a whole different kind of message. David (1:02:01) It's poorly thought through, I'll say in the nicest way. it'd be nice if there was a filter on some of the messaging. and I do agree with you on some of this, which yeah, I don't think the government should have the ability to just take somebody in the back and snuff them out. but we already have this process to make sure that doesn't happen. I think putting it on display for everybody is probably going too far. And, the question you might have would be, well, if you had video of the original incident, say you were able to piece together a full video of this guy going around with this mass shooting, and even say he gets shot and killed then. Are you gonna put that video out there for everybody to see? Or are you, censoring it and everything else? I mean, I think we understand that the consequences of mass shootings is that there's a good chance you're not gonna live. So yeah, I'm not sure what the message is other than, well, we could do this. Okay. Maybe we shouldn't. Rob (1:02:55) Maybe we shouldn't. David (1:02:56) so there's one more story I think we could talk about. Reuters reports that farm debt is At a record high, and some borrowing maybe missing from the official numbers. The USDA forecasts about $605 billion in debt at the end of 2026, which is up 4.6% or 1.5% after inflation. Reuters also describes a much longer rise since 2000. If we put this on the couch, the first thing I'd listen for is how hard it is not to know what's coming. Sometimes Frightening stories that we recognize feel a lot easier to hold on to than a future we can't get our arms around. So let's see what that's happening here. When we hear record farm debt, can a familiar disaster start to feel easier to deal with than not knowing what's coming? What do we get, Robbie, from feeling that we already know the ending? Rob (1:03:45) well, you know, I recognize this in myself, and it's my military planner background that tends to make me focus on failure. So, when you're developing a military plan operation, you anticipate all the worst case scenarios. and you plan for them and you put things in place to mitigate risk and when i read this there's several factors that sort of coalesced in my brain at the same time so we've got record farm debt we've got record oil prices the cost of diesel the cost of fertilizer we have incredibly high interest rates inflation and when you look around the world, nations on average have record levels of debt. And in my mind, all those factors are starting to coalesce into the potential of something catastrophic, a catastrophic level of financial crisis around the world. Now. the war in Iran, when it kicked off, I catastrophized. I really did expect much more of an impact on fuel prices, on the world economy. And what I've learned through this is that the World economy is interestingly resilient. And there's lots of different factors that are independently mitigating the impact for their own ends. And it comes together to have softened the impact of this war. So I'm not sure exactly what the outcome here is, but it is a worrisome indicator for the future. that when taken in the bigger picture, it frightens me. But stepping back from that psychologically, I then wonder is my interpretation collared by the fact that just in general, right now, there's so much anxiety. I just talked about it a few minutes ago that we're facing a huge shift in our economy and our social structure, in how we do business. add in the fact that the United States is at record high debt, other nations are at record high debt, the farm debt, fuel prices, interest rates, because there is an underlying anxiety, it leads us to interpret this in the darkest way possible. David (1:05:57) Yeah, I I would say I don't know that it's abnormal. the only thing we do as humans is we take the past. and I don't want to suggest what I'm about to say means that Pete Heggseth is not a human, so please don't read into that. But we take the outcomes from the past and then we try to apply them to our current situation and say, well, what can we anticipate? we had a whole show on self fulfilling prophecies, part of a self-fulfilling prophecy can be the lack of catastrophic outcome. if we're looking at these things and saying, look, we've seen this before, or we've seen something similar to it, we have to do something and we take action, then Maybe it's not a bad thing to recognize that all of these different factors can have a negative consequence. But realize too that because we've had those negative consequences before, we have theoretically taken steps to make sure that we don't have them in the future. That's not to say that we can't have a catastrophe, because we certainly have. We've had them since the Great Depression. but we've hopefully learned enough to mitigate. Now, again, the same time, that's not to say that we should ignore that these things are occurring. because then we are much more likely to have those catastrophic outcomes. I'm not an economist, so I can't really offer anybody a warm and fuzzy ending to this at this point. I think part of it is just like, well, let's not ignore what's occurring. let's not catastrophize to the point that we're preventing ourselves from being able to do anything about it. but let's also not delude ourselves into thinking that everything's gonna be fine because they certainly may not be. I think we all kind of hope that and hope is not a strategy but we all sort of hope Rob (1:07:37) It it is not. David (1:07:38) we we we sort of we say we we're hoping that the Fed is doing what they can. it really makes you wonder would we would we have more faith that the negative outcomes wouldn't occur if we had different leadership, or would we be more likely to actually suffer bigger negative consequences if we had different leadership But we had more confidence in them than they deserved. And so, I don't know that we're gonna stop what's gonna happen, but God, it's gonna be really, really interesting. even if it's fucking painful. And I can't help but think that there's probably people who are hoping that there'd be some terrible economic catastrophe just to out. this administration is being wholly unqualified, which it's kind of cutting off your nose to spite your face, but you know, psychologically, everything coming crashing down is going to be pretty gratifying for some people. And I think that just gets back to the whole, how did this administration get elected in the first place? To say, fuck you, to the other side. Well, the other side is kind of sitting back quietly, you know, just grinning at the fact that all of these economic things are occurring. Rob (1:08:49) Well i the interesting thing is if you follow Donald Trump's life, it is a cycle of being the underdog, achieving success, bankrupting himself, and then starting over again. And he always fails upward because it's Part of the unfairness of our economic system is that profit is individualized and loss is socialized. the laws on bankruptcy ends up sharing the cost of that to society as a whole, whereas all the profits that he makes goes to him. So somehow he walked out of bankruptcies better off, but it would fit. and it would fit remarkably well if he ends up bankrupting the United States. if the mark of his presidency was his financial collapse of our entire economic system, it would fit exactly with his life narrative. And that's frightening to me. one of the things when he was running and I realized that This is his narrative. This is what he does over and over and over again. Watching it happen again, I sort of stepped back and assuaged my own anxiety, going, Well, how could he really bankrupt the United States? Come on. Well, now the indicators say i it could. he really could. And it would be so on brand. It would be so on brand. David (1:10:11) Yeah. Rob (1:10:12) And, this is something actually my son and I were also chatting about. my sense is, and I've said this to you for years, that to achieve a return to normal order, I've often felt like we needed an existential war. like a World War II level experience in which the entire country had to unify in order to fight a true risk to our way of life. but if we look backwards in time, what predated World War II? that was the Great Depression. and by all means, let's put this up on the website because I hope I'm wrong. But it's hard not to see Some dominoes starting to fall and all these economic indicators pointing to something catastrophic and catastrophic financial things often precede catastrophic war historically. so I don't wanna see it. My gosh. I'm not voting for it. I'm not hoping for it. but The military planner in me is already planning. David (1:11:10) All right. Rob (1:11:11) Yeah. David (1:11:11) well, we've given people plenty to think about. Let's leave them with something they can actually use, so Rob (1:11:16) Going back to the bourbon now, David (1:11:18) what are you prescribing this week, Robbie? Rob (1:11:20) this week I'm prescribing the nation a 30 day course of finish your shit. It's an old medication. Your grandmother probably prescribed it. No prior authorization required. we've become a country where announcing something counts as doing it. And I certainly understand that appeal. I bought a gym membership once and immediately felt entitled to a cheeseburger. But apparently the gym wanted me to be patient and engage in exercise. so my prescription is come on, let's actually get something done and follow up on it. David (1:11:50) Seems like good advice. Mine is to notice the moment a story makes you feel better in a way that seems a little too convenient. Suddenly you know who's to blame, your people are entirely right, or somebody's gonna fix everything. Ask what feeling just went away and whether the problem actually changed. I think that's worth catching in ourselves. All right. Rob (1:12:10) Agreed. David (1:12:10) With candidates, we asked what they'd actually do with Congress. We asked what declaring the job done might spare people from feeling and why we might want to believe it. With the military stories, we asked what changes for the people doing the work and what leaders choose to show us. public execution broadcast needs its own justification. Now, the question underneath all this is what we're asking each other to carry. Our fear, our anger, our need to feel decent or in control. Those needs are human. What we do with them has consequences. If we can recognize the pattern, maybe we have a little more room to choose our next move. And apply that to us too. If you think we missed something, tell us what it is. What's the strongest argument against what we said? What should make us rethink it? But before we go, we want to say thanks to the people who keep coming back and listening. We'd like to send you some merch, but we've got to know who you are and where to send it. So email us at socials at shrinkthenation.com before our next episode drops on Tuesday, October 20th. That is going to get your household on the list once. Show us that you follow us on any one of our socials. That's Facebook, Blue Sky, Instagram, X, or TikTok, and you're on there twice. If you're also subscribed to our newsletter, you're going to be on there three times. already following or subscribed to us? That's going to count, but you still need to email us to enter. Tell us which platform you follow us on and include your username or a screenshot showing the follow. If you're subscribed to the newsletter, send your entry from that same email address so we can match it up. that gets you up to three chances, but nobody goes on the list automatically, so we need that email from you first. Next Tuesday, we will randomly pick two households and email them. If you're picked, you have until the following Tuesday to reply with your name, shipping address, and the eligible merch item that you want, including the color and size if it needs one. And we'll cover the item, sales tax, and shipping. We're gonna start with four weeks, but the more this show grows, the easier it's gonna be for us to keep it going. So send an episode to a friend or family member you think would enjoy it. You only need to enter once, though. your name is gonna stay on it for the remaining drawings unless your household wins. So keep listening because we'll also have a weekly listener word. You can email us for one extra chance in that week's drawing. It'll be in the transcript as well. So you can check there. this is for listeners who are 18 years and older. Shipping within the lower 48, eligible merch, and the full rules will be in the show notes. and one prize per household, we've got to spread the love around. The good news is we have tens of loyal listeners. Tens. So Rob (1:14:37) Tens. David (1:14:38) we're not exactly powerball over here. thanks everybody for sticking around. If you like the episode, share it with somebody. If you disagreed, let us know. We appreciate you listening and that's all I got. Robbie, anything else? Rob (1:14:49) Nope, you covered it. David (1:14:50) All right, everyone. Well I'm gonna queue up that music and we are out.