The “national divorce” fantasy sounds tidy until you run it through family systems: cutoffs, triangulation, custody battles, and a court stuck parenting two furious adults. Translation: America doesn’t need a split; it needs differentiation. Keep your values, lower the reactivity, stop outsourcing maturity to the judiciary.

What we do in this episode

• Put “national divorce” on the couch: why it’s not feasible, not cheap, and not a cure
• Triangulation 101: how parties use you to fight each other and why that keeps us stuck
• Emotional cutoff vs boundaries: preserving self without exiling neighbors
• Why the judicial branch is mediating fights lawmakers won’t touch
• Representation upgrades: expand Congress, shrink districts, increase voice
• A practical playbook for common ground that isn’t code for surrender
• Local first: where influence is real and algorithm drama isn’t

Prescriptions

1. Practice differentiation: “Here’s what I believe; here’s how I’ll behave with people who don’t.”
2. Don’t feed triangulation: stop using enemies to regulate your anxiety.
3. Push for representation reform and show up locally where outcomes change.
4. Choose better “parents”: reward leaders who de-escalate instead of auditioning for cable.

It’s not kumbaya. It’s grown-up conflict skills for a country that keeps threatening to move out.

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Shrink The Nation is where America lies on the couch — and we pour the bourbon.
Hosted by board-certified psychiatrists and mental health pros with backgrounds in military, media, and systems thinking, we break down the psychology behind politics, culture, and public dysfunction.
Smart. Funny. Clinically sharp. Slightly buzzed.

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Shrink The Nation — On the Couch With America.