When Tribes Shrink

David (00:00) Turning on the news lately feels like when you check your bank account after a weekend in Vegas, shit, what's missing? What's on fire? How long before the next thing evaporates and we're all supposed to pretend like we didn't gonna try finding that sweet spot between stone cold sober and we should be allowed near any microphones. We've got a glossy expensive narrative project, the Melania movie, the whole point is probably a seat at the table. And we've got the killing of Alex Prady where the whole point is what happens when the table flips and the public is holding the camera. welcome back to Shrink the Nation. Let's go. David (01:13) Hey, I'm David. I'm a board certified psychiatrist with over 20 years in the military. And today, Robbie, I'm drinking along with you. although much less fancy. Elijah Craig small batch, which I'm, I am finishing off 94 proof and, yeah, it's so far so good. Rob (01:32) Hey, it's Rob, a board certified psychiatrist, 26 years in the field, 30 years in the military. I tonight splurged. This is a big splurge for me. I usually I really don't like to spend a ton of money on bourbon because fundamentally it's all just alcohol. But. ⁓ Yeah, nice white call. Nothing says classy. David (01:50) You prefer white claw anyway. you Rob (01:58) quite like a white claw. No, I got a barrel proof Elijah Craig. for those out there in the audience, Elijah Craig, supposedly, potentially invented bourbon, maybe. Who knows? It's a loss to history, but that's where the name comes from. And this is a barrel proof. this is a hundred dollar bottle of bourbon that has not been opened yet. to the audience. It is 129 proof. So let's just say I got to be careful. I have to be careful. If it's if it's really tasty. It might be problematic for me, but at any rate, that's what I'm drinking this evening. Actually, I'm going to do the first pour right now. Let's see if we can hear the. did you hear that? bummer. David (02:27) Yeah, man. No. I saw it. But yeah, I mean, this is like this is the Elijah Craig episode then. I find that sweet spot. Rob (02:48) It is, it is. of bourbon, let's do something special. David (02:53) We need to find that sweet spot between shit and stone cold sober. Rob (02:58) Yeah, you know a little too much bourbon we get sloppy not enough not as quite as much humor Sweet spot David (03:04) Well, this one of our long time listeners, one of my favorites to see comments from is on board with you and we'll not be watching the Melania movie extra hard. So Rob (03:13) Extra hard. David (03:16) So thank you for that. Rob (03:18) It warmed my David (03:19) It did, but the movie is actually doing better expected. Rob (03:23) shut up. $7 million. Bullshit. Not better than expected. You're padding your numbers. You've made a bet. You're going to get beat. David (03:29) for it. a documentary first release. mean, was number three overall this weekend so far. Rob (03:35) it's January 30th, whatever it know today's February 1st, but whatever the weekend is, this is this is an off time for movies. Come on. million dollars. That's that's ridiculous. They they spent. 75 million dollars in total on this thing. They spent $40 million on the documentary itself. That's about four times what a documentary costs. A high-end documentary. get by much cheaper, but on a high-end documentary, say $10 million. by the best estimates, 28 million of that went to Melania. So what we have here is... ⁓ David (04:14) cell phone footage. Rob (04:15) $40 million documentary and $35 million in distribution. And I'm really actually fascinated. We talked a little bit about it last week. We talked about why now. Actually, why now was the wrong question. The right question is, why did Amazon Prime fund this vanity project? What are they hoping to get? David (04:38) Are you You kidding? mean, yeah. So, why would Jeff Bezos spend 35 million in advertisement whatever for this, for this. I don't know. Why would he spend a couple million dollars to the Trump inauguration fund and Rob (04:41) not losing battle. Yeah. David (04:54) because he gets a he gets a seat at the table. Why wouldn't he? you're talking about government, you get defense Yeah. Rob (04:58) And You nailed it that this has nothing to do with the documentary. This has nothing to do with the subject This has nothing to do with anything other than getting a seat at the table so yes to our Tens of listeners. I want you to try really hard not to watch this Not because I want David to lose his bet. I mean he's going to David (05:17) I mean, what would you pay? If you know, no, I'm not going to lose it. And here's why. ⁓ so the right now, I think it's been absolutely panned by critics who've seen this, ⁓ as basically just being propaganda garbage. There's a song they actually use twice in the movie. No. Rob (05:23) Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're gonna do a little totally. Yeah. Propaganda. We are Charlie Kirk. David (05:38) They used one of Melania's favorite songs twice just because likes it that much. Like cinema 101, don't reuse your song. Don't reuse the song unless and Phil Collins wrote the whole thing. But then, but yeah, they use the same song. Rob (05:55) How did you pull that one out? Tarzan Phil Collins and Tarzan. How did that come out of your subconscious? David (05:57) ⁓ When I was a teenager, I got a job working at Hollywood video which was a competitor to blockbuster back in the day. That's how old I am. Right. And for the entire time I worked there, the little children's corner movie like VCR didn't work so we could only play rated G movies. Rob (06:08) Yeah, yeah, I remember. Yeah. David (06:22) on all the screens and for some reason that I do not Tarzan was one of them Tarzan and Toy Story those are burned into my memory because they both have really obnoxious soundtracks that play endlessly through the entire movie and yeah Tarzan and Phil Collins just Rob (06:25) Tarzan was the one. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. David (06:41) awful. Rob (06:42) Man, climbing into your subconscious is frightening. David (06:45) It's a scary, dark place. I highly recommend not not going too deep. OK, so it got absolutely panned by critics for being just right wing propaganda. But of the verified viewers, so the people who actually somehow I don't know how you verify on Rotten Tomatoes that you've actually seen this movie, but apparently you can. It's got a 99 percent like rating. Rob (06:46) Yeah, don't do it folks. Stupid. David (07:08) by people who have seen which tells me that it % MAGA people who are going to watch this movie. And as expected, % drinking the Kool-Aid. you know, I watched, recently watched the Heaven's Gate documentary that came out a few years ago. And I'm wondering whether that Kool-Aid will include vodka phenobarb. Rob (07:30) Hehehehehe David (07:33) at some point in this administration. Rob (07:35) For just for the general public, I think we're going to need vodka and peanut bar actually. You know, I all I know is that they purportedly made seven million first weekend. Obviously, first weekend usually is your biggest seller. They're going to, you know, have a few more weekends. They're going to pull in some more money. I don't think they're going to hit the 40 million. They're definitely not going to hit the 75 million that they actually invested in this thing. And then it'll go over to streaming. And of course, you know, there'll be some residuals there and whatever. I have no intention to even watch it. So I, you know, I'm even hesitant to make any comments, any further comments, because I'm not going to watch the thing. propaganda. David (08:15) Yeah, no, there's a trend. There's been a trend over the last. decade and some change that especially right-wing leaning documentaries have been doing surprisingly well. in the theater And it's it's a niche that goes otherwise on scratched. Most documentaries don't do well in the theater. But because there is so few major movie releases that are very right wing. they tend to do very well when they're in the theater. So. I think the push on this movie is going to be after the weekend they had that was better than they expected. I believe they're going to start. They're actually going to expand the number of theaters that it's really try to go after that money. still think they're going to clear 40 I think one of the highest grossing like documentaries of all time, especially in the open, it was like a hundred million, something like that. So I don't think they're going to be making money. but I think they'll make, maybe make a little bit of money, but they'll make back what they spent on making it. But it doesn't matter. It's not really about that. ⁓ It's $35 million to Jeff Bezos would be like you giving a hundred bucks to get a seat at the table at the White House. mean, it's couch cushion change. mean, it's nothing to him. $35 million is absolutely nothing. And I imagine that if there was a Democrat in office right now Rob (09:11) No, it's not. Yeah. Absolutely. David (09:29) and there was an opportunity for him to spend $35 million to get extra privileged access to policymaking and all that access. He would absolutely do that too. We'd have a Doug Imhoff movie and it'd be called Imhoff. And we'd be watching, they'd be, you know, watching the shit out of that too. Rob (09:45) I'm off. Yep, yep, yep, you nailed it. David (09:51) Yeah. So it's, I mean, it's, it's money, it's politics. It's not surprising. It's propaganda. People on the right have nothing else to go to theater and watch that's going to get them as excited right now. And so they're going to go watch it. And I don't think Jeff Bezos gives a shit. Rob (10:06) I still am sticking by my side of the bet. I do not think it's going to make back its money. It's definitely going to not make back the 75 mil. But ⁓ David (10:14) I don't consider the 35 mil he spent as being part of its production. I think that's a bribe. Rob (10:22) It's a bribe. Exactly. So yeah, we'll stick to the 40. We'll stick to the 40. That's fine. I don't think it will make it back. Although released a trumped release on just how this is like the... David (10:24) $35 million bribe. It's 40. Rob (10:36) most popular. David (10:37) It did better than expected and it probably will do better than expected. it is, I believe, like the third largest opening for a documentary in a release of documentary in an opening weekend. I think the top one was some documentary I've never heard of by that Disney released. Rob (10:46) documentary. Yeah. Yeah. Tarzan. David (10:58) some like 2012 or something about penguins or some shit. Rob (11:02) the inner life of penguins. David (11:04) that do not exist in Greenland as we learned. Not yet. Not until the US brings them. We're bringing we're bringing the penguins. Be very, scared or very excited. Rob (11:06) that don't exist in Greek. They do not. They do not. we are. That and $500,000 to every every Greenlander gets $500,000 and a penguin. So there you go, folks. David (11:23) Yeah. Speaking of which, he's not, we can, we can swing over that. haven't heard much about Greenland since, since we were told that there was, there was a deal in the works and haven't heard what's going on? Rob (11:27) Yeah. You know, we're dealing with the attention span of a two-year-old and anyone, know, our tens of listeners, I assume there's a few parents out in the audience, more than a few probably. And when you're dealing with an a toddler, whatever they want becomes the center of the universe in the moment that they want it. And then time passes and they forget about it. And that's what I just, I mean, it's hard psychologically speaking. It has been difficult to just keep up advancement and these focuses, the focus the Venezuela and then Iran and then Greenland and then Cuba. David (12:09) Faux Sci. Cuba Rob (12:18) And it comes and it seems so central. It seems so important and so, crisis-like. And then it just evaporates. And yeah, Greenland has evaporated as a thing now. It got the attention that was wanted and then it moved on. Although, you know, Iran was a thing for a little bit. disappeared and then it became a thing again. So, you know, as of right now, I don't know the status, but, you know, we may well have bombed Iran again. David (12:48) So what we're dealing with is a... burgeoning or maybe fading object permanency issue. I assume that at some point in the last 79 years that object permanency was established and maintained. Rob (12:51) Toddler? toddler. David (13:05) in that there was some of that, right? But now it seems to be. going away. Rob (13:11) Well, the unsettling thing is that, we touched on this last time a bit, but for most of our listeners' lives, and certainly my half century on Earth, there has been constancy. And that there was a structure that was in place at the highest levels of the federal government to ensure that constancy because the constancy was a benefit to our economy. It was a benefit to the world economy. It was a benefit to our allies. It held in check our enemies. That constancy no longer exists. That it truly, I mean, every morning, I get up at 0530, I do my thing, I flip on the news while I'm wrestling with my kid to get out of bed. And never know. I mean, it's like the lotto every goddamn morning. It's like the lotto. I flip it on and like, what happened today? What are we looking at here? it is unsettling. it's, you know, we end up, it's individually unsettling, but it also has these downstream ramifications. It has ramifications to the market, to the stock market. It has ramifications to our allies and how they approach us. There is a... chaos factor that is not normal, but we have all come to just accept it and it's just not. It is not normal. And over the last eight, 10 years, we've gotten to the point where not normal isn't even questioned anymore. That chaos factor is just not questioned. It's just part and parcel of what it is to exist at this moment. But it's not normal. It's not normal. This is a deviation from the norms that have been established over many, many years, that when you are the most powerful nation in the world, you owe it. With great power comes great responsibility. So not to Spider-Man this up too much, but... The responsibility that we held was that we weren't gonna out of school. a theme. We were gonna be consistent. We were gonna be measured. doesn't exist anymore. David (15:26) really funny when you're saying this. I can't help but think that you're essentially describing the life of somebody with complex PTSD where they just get so used to dysfunction. it's easier to protect oneself. Rob (15:34) Mm-hmm. Describe Complex PTSD to our tens of listeners who may not well have spent much of their life treating this. David (15:46) Yeah. Well, I was, yeah, I was in my, in the process of doing that, but, but thank you. Is, this is probably a bit different, in that our country's been around for longer than, know, a couple of years, when you're exposed, especially from an early age to Rob (15:52) Alright. David (16:02) shifting trauma. could be little traumas, just getting yelled at frequently to bigger traumas being assaulted, attacked, beaten. you mix that with periods of stability, generally brief periods of stability, but to the point where you're not really sure, am I going to be am I going to experience a trauma today or later today? Or is everything going to be fine? is usually a cycle that sort of gets itself a parent who is difficult to predict as it were. but over time, we, might consider somebody who has experienced that kind of extensive trauma throughout their life as having complex PTSD. which is a term. championed by... Judith Herman, in a, excellent book, called trauma and recovery that she wrote in the nineties. and at the time she was trying to get complex PTSD to replace borderline personality disorder in the DSM five, that was still pending coming the DSM is the Bible by which psychiatrists use to diagnose disorders. And so she wrote this book and was championing complex PTSD to be the term to replace Portland personality disorder. And your description of your morning and just probably in really just the country's experience over the last few years is reminds me of that. The fallout of it, unfortunately, is that somebody with complex PTSD is can be difficult to trust, because they get so used to trauma that it's challenge sometimes for them to. non-traumatic world. In fact, that's usually when they come across URI's presence is when they've really struggled to readapt to a calm, calming presence in life. Rob (17:40) And here's where we are, that much decade of time of the kind of chaos that we've experienced. And it probably goes back beyond that, the chaos of the news cycle, et cetera. But here we are just accepting not normal, maybe part of this is the scope of people's lives that if you've if you haven't had enough years and you can't reflect what the norm was for most of our history and certainly since 19, we'll say 1945. We've just accepted this it to complex PTSD, which is tragic. I mean, it's just tragic that we nod our heads and we move forward and we feel more than just a little powerless to affect this. David (18:31) with with it, it's not just that you learn to survive in that system. You learn to thrive in that system of. Up and down trauma, you learn to get so used to it, and then you you make it through it, but then you start to create that as well. And so. I guess I. what we spoke about last time was that The rest of the world is getting, especially our allies, they're getting used to the fact that we're not reliable anymore. And so they're, they're having to change what they're doing to have their own consistency. But just like somebody with complex PTSD, that will get really uncomfortable for us because we're used to chaos. We thrive on it now. We're getting really good at it. And when they try to find stability for themselves, what happens? What happens when somebody who has complex PTSD gets into a relationship with somebody who isn't riding that roller coaster with them? Well, they don't trust them. They try to create chaos in their lives as They want them to experience the same thing, not because they're mean, but because that's what they're used to. And, I'm getting a little worried talking about talking about it now. Crap. What's your going to do when we're calling them up in the middle of the night crying, telling them not to leave us. And then we're like, fuck you. Rob (19:45) I love you, baby. Yeah. David (19:53) It's going to be, think, you think Europe can read, stop walking on eggshells and calm us down or what? Rob (19:54) Yeah. No, no, I think it's like any other relationship that you are relying on the other person to regulate you, it's a losing battle. Irv Yalem, who's a psychiatrist, who wrote a bunch of books, he was real popular in the early 2000s, less so now, wrote a book a really lovely book, by the way, folks, if you want something to really stimulate your love of life. He wrote a book called Staring at the Sun, which is about dealing with death. So Irv Yalem is sort of founded and literally wrote the textbook on existential psychiatry. is really the sense that what we all struggle with is our own limited existence, will come to an end. Neither here nor there. But Irv Yalem said, relationship can only be as good as the relationship you have with yourself. And until we, as a nation, can coalesce. until there's some sense of cogence to our story, to our connections. When we are pulling from the interior out, we're not going to be able to have good relationships around the world. And it's really not their job to regulate us. What it ends up becoming is their job to regulate themselves, their job to protect themselves. and to make decisions for themselves. And what we had established for 70 plus years was consistency, predictability, which made us a fantastic partner. It made us a great partner. We were consistent. We held the line. weren't a generator of chaos. And... We are now that we are a generator of chaos. So they have to take care of themselves. David (21:40) Well, you just described codependency is what you described for 70 years. We were in a codependent relationship with and controlling relationship with the rest of world. Rob (21:49) Well, you know, I don't know if it was that much. It was just that we were a solid partner. We were solid. We didn't create chaos. We took care of ourselves. We took care of others. So yes, I mean, in a sense, I suppose it creates a little bit of dependency that we were so strong and so predictable that the rest of the world may have become a little bit dependent on us. We are no longer that partner. We are now the partner who's sitting at the kitchen table, slamming beers. Or drinking Elijah Craig barrel proof at the kitchen table. It's stout, folks. I'm here to tell you. It clears the sinuses. Spicy. David (22:28) Well, I'm depressed. Thanks. Thanks for that, Dr. Rob. Appreciate that. Rob (22:29) Yeah. What there's not a whole lot to feel great about right now. for our tens of listeners, what does one do when one has nothing external to feel real great about? other than drink. David (22:45) No, okay, so not that. All right, shit, I've been telling people the wrong ass thing for all these years. fuck. That academic probation really makes sense now. Rob (22:51) Wrong advice, the wrong, wrong advice. No, I'll tell you what I think our solution is. And I think we're getting there and it's a slow, a slow evolution. So historically in the United States, much of our social structure ended up being built around churches and around civic organizations. And those have become less important. Churches just don't carry the sway that they once did. People do not attend them. Civic organizations have really all but dried up. And what individually we have to do is disconnect from that. And I think we swung too far. mean, and we've talked about this, you know, in our... seven months of doing this. I think we've talked about every topic that's relevant, but We have become too engaged at the federal level and social media and the like has convinced us that we are connected. I'm friends with the president on Facebook or whatever, truth social. But we have to now get closer to where we are and be controlled in our own lives. I think, you know, interestingly, I think the next evolution is that some of the organizational structure that once was provided by civic organizations and by churches, it's going to be in the workplace. That's the only thing that's left. And it's going to be up to these workplaces to create a structure and a social organization. that sustains us because we need that. We're tribal just by our formative environment, our formative developmental environment with small tribe. We are tribal. internet forced us to sort of expand our tribe to something that was way too big, way too big. And everyone feels it. Everyone feels the... the chaos that comes from trying to be a part of a tribe that is massive. And now we have to turn backwards into tribes that are small. And the more chaotic the federal government is, I think it ends up, whether we recognize it, whether it's a conscious choice, we have to turn away from that because it's too chaotic, it's too big, we have no control. Plus no one wants to look at Stephen Miller. on the regular. At any rate, neither here nor there. We now, I think, as a people are going to turn backwards locally and more tied in to that which we can contain. it will be interesting to watch this evolution in the coming, I don't know, years, 5, 10. David (25:33) Well, don't you don't you think we're kind of seeing that now with the protests against ICE? with the federal government attempting to implement a simple plan to deport millions upon millions of immigrants, we'll say that. The simple plan. Well, it was a simple idea, deport all immigrants, right? each year, at least a million, right? Because we had tens of millions of immigrants who were here illegally. But the plan was a simple plan. It was just... Rob (25:46) Super simple and simple playin'. End theory. A million in a year. bad hombres. David (26:05) get more ice and deport them? Well, the reality is that polls now show most, people, majority of not like the way that they're doing they start to by American citizens, really gets the local civic mindedness flowing. Right. And so you're seeing these protests, but that's actually having upstream consequences where it isn't just Democrats now. It isn't just the one side protesting. It's becoming its community members. who are saying, don't want this. This isn't we asked for. To the point where there are Republicans who are actually standing out and being upset and saying, this has got to stop. We need to change things. So, I mean, I do think we're seeing local impact. It's not like protests weren't happening before. Rob (26:58) falling back to smaller tribes. Something that I've actually found fascinating is that the thing in this latest killing that seems to have pulled in the right is the fact that this guy was carrying a And the administration made some broad statements about how you can't carry a gun to a protest. Well, we over the last David (27:10) Mm-hmm. Man, that shit's all over Kyle Rittenhouse, doesn't it? Rob (27:21) Exactly. We have a pretty rich history in the last 10 years in which carrying a gun into Starbucks, into Walmart, into Target became a thing. And there's a subpopulation and a relatively significant subpopulation sacrosanct. Yes, you can carry a gun. You can carry a gun anywhere. You can carry a gun to church, And that actually seems to be the line that has pulled a significant portion of the right into this protest against these things, which in and of itself, I find that interesting. in keeping with what we're talking about, it's that the tribes are shrinking. So it goes from the big tribe into the little sub tribe. And the little sub tribe is the, you know, the Second Amendment crowd, you right to carry arms crowd. And that crowd now is aligning itself with a crowd that they never would have been aligned with before, based on the fact that this guy had a gun in his waistband. David (28:28) It was based on him legally having a gun in his waistband, them taking the gun from his waistband and then shooting him 10 times in the back. Rob (28:30) Mm-hmm. and then shooting him. Yeah, ten times. an inflection point in which libertarians and those who are pro-gun end up having to make a decision, having to make a choice, and they diverge from the party line. So it was easy. It was easy to stay with that tribe right up until that wedge issue came in too. So the fact that He had a gun in his waistband. The fact that he was carrying ends lines and making folks who would not be allies. They're not natural allies, but now all of sudden they are. And, you know, the old small government wing of the Republican party, Which has always been very focused on government overreach Now they're engaged the right to bear arms crowd is engaged and they're now on the same side with these know left Which creates an interesting dynamic? And what you know psychologically? The administration is consensus that it had. It's losing the power. Its group is starting to disintegrate. My speculation is that that's not going to be well tolerated by our administration. The administration as it is, is very sensitive to losing public opinion. It's very sensitive to polls. It's very sensitive not feeling like it has the glow of the populace. And as we move forward, an administration that is sensitive to not having that, and no longer has feel like it makes them even more dangerous. And not dangerous from a power standpoint, dangerous from the grabbing for power standpoint. David (30:26) Yeah, I mean, it's always been an interesting. the way that the support was overarching term of the Republican party really doesn't apply the group that you're really seeing. you had some really odd combos anyway, when you had people who were Antivax and really granola, right? Like let's, let's go do hot yoga and, Reiki therapy. That's going to fix everything. Teaming up with the second amendment crowd. I mean, it just, those two things didn't really go, but where they fit was, in there, being accepted by in I think happens. Where once you have power, you stop really caring about the things that got you power. As long as you just kind of go along your path. And I think we just keep seeing that happen. This is just... Rob (31:15) Mm-hmm. David (31:16) We like the drama, I guess, of the switch now. before, when you have two parents who aren't really fit to parent, who are fighting over who gets to be the parent with the kid. And each one is trying to convince the kid that they're the better parent. And so the kid picks a parent, but that parent isn't capable of... being a parent any better than the other parent. And so what happens, they collapse under the weight of the projection that of the needing to be a good parent. And then you just give them, give me the other parent and then they're, good for a while until they're really not. just feels like what we're going through, but far, far worse Rob (31:51) I mean, that's psychodynamically. I'm reminded of the way social media works now. can follow, like if you take a social media star, and I'm using star very, very loosely. And you follow them backwards. What usually happens is, is they're throwing a bunch of shit against the wall they're seeing what sticks. And then whatever sticks that pulls them in that direction. And all of sudden they, they end up personifying something that is not them. It's not truly them. It's not their real opinion. personifying what is popular what got the hits and the clicks speaking of folks. We need you to follow us on YouTube and hit like Tell us what you like and we will do more of that But they follow what is liked and then their persona is built around what is liked And then they hit a popularity. And then they start to become true to themselves because they feel right to do so, they have the power to do so, they have the popularity. that's when it disintegrates on them. So this administration threw a ton of the wall from 2015 to the present. A lot of shit got thrown against the wall. Not all of it actually stuck. And we could go back. We could go back to all the different things that got thrown out there that didn't really catch. But there were a few things that did catch the themes of, you know, America first, anti-immigration, those things caught. Where we're at now is they're there. They are in power. And now we're seeing actually the fact they didn't believe in any of those things. None of those things actually are a driving force. There's no policy. There's no philosophy. The philosophy was whatever I need to do in order to get to power. So we're seeing a necessarily because they are disintegrating, it's because they never were those things. They never were, didn't believe in any of those things. They believed in getting into office And now we're seeing this very disorganized approach to policy, approach to national defense, approach to international relationships, approach to domestic policy that is so disorganized because They should have any organization to begin with. It was just that there was slogans. It was slogans. We could just throw slogans and whatever people cheered about that became the slogan. And here we sit and we've done this to ourselves. We have absolutely done this to ourselves. as a populace. We bought slogans and it makes we botch. David (34:40) We bought shit that stuck. Rob (34:41) We bought shit, sticky shit. We bought the stickiest of the shit. And it actually, you know, I find myself getting angry about frustrated that we're that naive as a population. We're that naive that we bought the sticky shit. Whatever the stickiest of the shit, we bought it. David (34:42) Ticky shit. Rob (35:00) That's ours. Hands full of it. Yes. David (35:03) get the frustration. certainly. I see cognitive goes sticking with that It's like, well, I bought I'm going to go with amazing. Rob (35:12) Mm-hmm. David (35:16) how far along people will go. What's really interesting to me, though, is that When you have single issue voters who buy into something because of that one issue, what's really surprising to me is that there does seem to be a point at which else. Right? Like the second amendment folks, they will forgive every other misdeed every other flaw that this administration shows. But the second that one issue isn't there anymore, they're gone. That is fascinating to me. It's really fascinating. surprised by that when you've bought into something and you're taking the whole and you're saying, I'm cool with the idea of taking Greenland and a shockingly large number of people were. I mean, was like in the 30 % of people polled were like, yes, by force, by military force, they were cool with taking Rob (36:12) One out of three Americans were ready to take Greenland, folks. With all the downstream consequences, we're at war with NATO now. David (36:22) Yeah. yeah, decent percentage of Americans were totally cool with going into Venezuela taking their bombing boats good reason. We're cool with all of that, but the no, I don't know. I would stop. It's not. Rob (36:37) Have we bombed any boats lately, by the way? Did we stop that? David (36:44) news anymore. Actually, I don't think we're doing it. once we captured all the oil, yeah, but nobody cares about that. don't care. Rob (36:46) I don't think we are. I think we stop bombing boats. We don't care about the 25,000 Americans that die every boat that gets. David (36:54) It guy got that made them turn on the administration. It was the administration saying, well, maybe He shouldn't a gun to a didn't give a shit about him getting shot. They didn't get a shit of it, but this one issue. turn them all off. I have a hard time wrapping my brain around voter. Rob (37:09) Yeah. Well, let me reframe this for you in a clinical sense, because you've sat with so many patients in your career. How many people end up narrowing their world down to single issues? How many folks that you've seen come in with a really narrow perspective, largely because they can't hold the bigger perspective? It's too much. it's too overwhelming. I can't consider all things. I can only consider a thing and then I can take everything else and put it in the context of that thing that I'm holding that is sacred. Sanctus act. Yes, that's the word to me. man, I, to the audience, I poured a single drink and it is 129 proof. David (37:52) Yeah. Rob (37:59) And it's a whole boy. boy. It cleared the sinuses it Affected my addiction. So there we go I'm setting it aside. Actually, it's it's too much David (38:00) giving you fits. But I even, okay. So going back to heaven's gate talking about, cause that's There was, there was a point at which there was voluntary castration being done. that was the point at which several members were like, all right, I'm done. I'm, I'm good. I've been here for, I've been here for. Rob (38:14) Right, right. It's very timely. Alright, fuck this. I'm out. David (38:28) I've been here for 18 years. Rob (38:29) I'm out now. David (38:30) I got the haircut. I'm wearing the black Nikes. All is good. We can kill ourselves. Awesome. But, but the castration I'm out. Rob (38:32) I'm wearing the black shoes. I'm not cutting my nuts off. David (38:39) is what worries me though too. And cause I have a point was that once they were like, well, maybe the castration isn't required. They came back. They came back. was so what, so is the second amendment, the castration. Point is that they're like, what are they going to do? Cause they're going to bring them once you've gotten this deep, you'll have that, maybe that moment of, crosses a line. But then when the person walks it back, then you're just right back on you're ready to ascend to the next level. You're going to drink the Kool-Aid. Rob (39:11) because the inclination is to be there to begin with. So when they cross the line, these are the lines that people draw. And again, The world's super complex and, not everyone, not most people. This is normal, that it's too complex. So you do have to distill it down to something, the few things you can hold on to. What can you hold on to? What can you use as an organizing principle for your world? but that does put you into a zone and they cross the line. of, let's say, gun rights. If they walk it back effectively, then these folks will absolutely feel much more comfortable falling back in line there, much more comfortable. The question is, is if they do walk it back effectively. David (39:58) Yeah. Rob (39:59) To this point, I've not seen any efforts to do that. David (40:01) I think they will. Rob (40:02) Although try, they'll try, you know, it won't be a hundred percent that comes back. It'll be, it'll be a high percentage, but not a hundred percent. And this is how you lose the faith of your following is whittle it away. It's not lost in a moment. It's lost over time. When you make these transgressions, and you walk it back and you pull back another, you know, the 80 % of those folks come back. Fine. But 20 % don't. And I just made that number up, folks. I don't know how 10%, 15%, 25%. I don't know. all are going to come back. And even the ones that come back are going to be uneasy. They're going to be uneasy. it's not a perfect fit anymore. David (40:35) a percent, some percent. Rob (40:48) and they know it. It's more comfortable being here, but it's not a perfect fit anymore. gonna continue. And I'll tell you why it's gonna continue. It's because they're not based on any kind of values, that the decisions aren't internally coherent. They are moment to moment to moment. They're based on something that has nothing to do with a policy or a worldview. The worldview is, We want to be in power. bully people. We want to take control. We want to do what we want to do. Does not matter really. There is no consistency to policy. And that catches up with you at a certain point. You can do this for a while. You can pretend. You can tout any stance. You can play to the crowd. You can like whatever makes the crowd cheer, you can say those things, but you can't do it forever because that's not truly who you are. And truly who you are has to come out eventually. So the lesson to be learned to our tens of listeners is be consistent, be consistent with yourself. Don't pretend. catch up with you. Trust me, folks. You'll get nailed in the end. and not in a good way. David (41:59) Or maybe just maybe just don't suggest castration. Rob (42:02) Maybe avoid that. you're going to lose a good percentage of your male population if you propose that. David (42:03) as a means to the next level. Well, isn't that kind of like taking away the Second Amendment? It's like castration. Rob (42:14) Well, it's remarkably similar in I'm gonna agree with you. I'm gonna agree with you. It's all phallic. David (42:19) There you go. It is. Rob (42:22) not to distill Freud down cause I I, I personally think Freud contributed a lot to the field. he gave us a language to talk about the brain and the mind. my favorite, that he brought forward was repetition compulsion. which fundamentally to our audience is the tendency to recreate your formative environment and your, life over and over again. Incredible contributions to the field. But if I were to distill him down, it basically came down to men are all concerned their penises aren't big enough. And women's biggest concern is the fact that they don't have one. That was quite a nutshell. And I don't know how accurate that is. But Yeah. David (43:01) Cocaine's hell of a drug, Rob (43:03) He was only hopped up for like 10 years. Give him a break. David (43:06) Yeah, that's it. Whatever. All right. I think we've covered. Rob (43:10) What have we covered? David (43:11) everything possibly useful at this point. give a prescription there at the end. So I'm going to count it. Be consistent. That works for me. He also talked about civically engaged. Those are the prescriptions. So. Rob (43:17) All right. Be consistent, folks. That's my prescription. Right. Probably don't don't worry about your penis size is the other one. David (43:26) or if you don't have one. Rob (43:27) And if you don't have one, that's lovely actually David (43:30) All right. Well, thank you to everybody who stuck around for this very odd, of Shrink the Nation. ahead and check out our YouTube. being a little bit more active. We're releasing a shorter video every day if we can. We're actually getting better at video editing, which I think. We'll probably not make a goddamn difference, but we're getting better at it. hit like, and for those of you, the tens of you who listened to us on our YouTube channel, we're going to be switching our podcast over to shrink the nation pod. And we're going to keep the rest of our videos on shrink the nation. Rob (43:50) Hehehehehe David (44:06) But for those of you who listen to our podcast anywhere else, it's not moving anywhere other than on YouTube. That's it. Anything else Rob? Rob (44:13) No, I think we've covered it and I think you summed it up nicely. This ends up being potentially the weirdest episode that we've done thus far. David (44:21) Absolutely. gotta get weird sometimes. Ending with Freud. So, alright, well, let's keep that music and we are... Rob (44:24) Sometimes.