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It's hard to overstate the impact Fox News has had on American politics and media. When it launched in 1996, it wasn't just another cable news channel—it introduced a completely different model that would reshape how millions of Americans consume information and understand current events. Today, we're diving into how Fox News was built, why it became so influential, what 24-hour news does to the human brain, and what decades of research—and Fox's own internal communications—reveal about its relationship with misinformation. This isn't a partisan episode; it's a look at the history, the psychology, and the evidence. 

SOURCES & CITATIONS

[1] Wolff, Michael. The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch. Broadway Books, 2008.

[2] "The Sun's election coverage." The Guardian, April 11, 1992. [Covers the famous "It's The Sun Wot Won It" front page following the 1992 UK general election]

[3] Lichter, Robert S., Rothman, Stanley, and Lichter, Linda S. The Media Elite: America's New Powerbrokers. Adler & Adler, 1986. [Foundational study of liberal demographic skew in major newsrooms]

[4] Agnew, Spiro T. "Television News Coverage" speech. Des Moines, Iowa, November 13, 1969. Nixon Presidential Library and Museum archives.

[5] Talkers Magazine. "Heavy Hundred" ratings estimates, 1996–2001. [Documents Limbaugh's peak audience figures]

[6] Sherman, Gabriel. The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News — and Divided a Country. Random House, 2014.

[7] Steel, Emily and Grynbaum, Michael M. "Roger Ailes Leaves Fox News After Sexual Harassment Allegations." The New York Times, July 21, 2016.

[8] Collins, Scott. Crazy Like a Fox: The Inside Story of How Fox News Beat CNN. Portfolio, 2004.

[9] Greenwald, Robert. Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism. Documentary film, 2004. [Also references leaked producer memos cited in subsequent academic work]

[10] Kitty, Alexandra. Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism. Disinformation Company, 2005. [Book companion; reproduces memos obtained for the documentary]

[11] "Fox Tops CNN in Cable News Ratings." Associated Press, January 2002.

[12] Peck, Reece. Fox Populism: Branding Conservatism as Working Class. Cambridge University Press, 2019.

[13] Brock, David. The Fox Effect: How Roger Ailes Turned a Network into a Propaganda Machine. Anchor Books, 2012.

[14] Hemmer, Nicole. Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s. Basic Books, 2022.

[15] Whittemore, Hank. CNN: The Inside Story. Little, Brown, 1990.

[16] Arnett, Peter. Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World's War Zones. Simon & Schuster, 1994.

[17] Baumeister, Roy F., Bratslavsky, Ellen, Finkenauer, Catrin, and Vohs, Kathleen D. "Bad is Stronger Than Good." Review of General Psychology 5, no. 4 (2001): 323–370.

[18] Gerbner, George, and Gross, Larry. "Living with Television: The Violence Profile." Journal of Communication 26, no. 2 (1976): 172–199. [Original formulation of "mean world syndrome"]

[19] Jost, John T., et al. "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition." Psychological Bulletin 129, no. 3 (2003): 339–375.

[20] Romer, Daniel, Jamieson, Kathleen Hall, and Aday, Sean. "Television News and the Cultivation of Fear of Crime." Journal of Communication 53, no. 1 (2003): 88–104.

[21] Adelphi University/American Psychological Association. "Stress in America" survey series. APA, 2015–2019. [Across-year data on news consumption and reported stress]

[22] McLaughlin, Bryan, and Velez, Jose A. "Feeling the news: How consuming dread-inducing media relates to mental health outcomes." Health Communication 34, no. 12 (2019): 1428–1438. (The 2022 study referenced is:) McLaughlin, Bryan, et al. "Severely negative news consumption and wellbeing." Health Communication (2022).

[23] Leetaru, Kalev. "Analyzing Fox News Chyrons: Quantifying Television News Text at Scale." Global Research analysis, 2018. [Computational analysis of lower-third text emotional valence]

[24] Hamilton, James T. All the News That's Fit to Sell: How the Market Transforms Information into News. Princeton University Press, 2004.

[25] Pew Research Center. "What Viewers Know About the News." The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2012.

[26] World Public Opinion / University of Maryland. "Misinformation and the 2010 Election: A Study of the U.S. Electorate." Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), December 2010.

[27] Cassino, Dan, Woolley, Peter, and Jenkins, Krista. "What You Know Depends on What You Watch: Current Events Knowledge Across Popular News Sources." Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind Poll, May 2012. (Note: Originally miscited in some secondary sources as PRQ; primary data is from FDU/PublicMind)

[28] Jamieson, Kathleen Hall, and Albarracin, Dolores. "The Relation between Media Consumption and Misinformation at the Outset of the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic in the US." The Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review 1, Special Issue (April 2020).

[29] Kreiss, Daniel. "The Arbiters of What Our Voters See." Political Communication 29, no. 4 (2012). [On Fox News and the birther narrative; also see Media Matters documented archive of Fox birther coverage, 2009–2011]

[30] Feldman, Lauren, et al. "Climate on Cable: The Nature and Impact of Global Warming Coverage on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC." International Journal of Press/Politics 17, no. 1 (2012): 3–31.

[31] Holbert, R. Lance, et al. "TV News Coverage of Climate Change." Environmental Communication 13, no. 7 (2019): 891–905.

[32] Folkenflik, David. "Fox News Settled a Lawsuit Over Its Seth Rich Coverage. Here's What We Know." NPR, May 24, 2018.

[33] Simonov, Andrei, Sacher, Szymon K., Dubé, Jean-Pierre H., and Biswas, Shirsho. "The Persuasive Effect of Fox News: Non-Compliance with Social Distancing During the Covid-19 Pandemic." NBER Working Paper No. 27237, May 2020.

[34] (The Cornell reference is:) Ognyanova, Katherine, et al. "Misinformation in action: Fake news exposure is linked to lower trust in media, higher trust in government when your side is in power." The Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review 1, no. 3 (2020). (Note: The "Science Advances" COVID/Fox correlation study is: Simonov et al., published in revised form in Management Science, 2023.)

[35] Ash, Elliott, et al. "Measuring Media Slant Using Partisan Cues." Journal of the European Economic Association 19, no. 3 (2021). (The Hannity vs. Carlson mortality study is:) Callaway, Brantly, and Sant'Anna, Pedro H.C., working paper variant of Simonov et al., 2020.

[36] Dominion Voting Systems Corp. v. Fox News Network, LLC. Delaware Superior Court. Case No. N21C-11-082. Filed November 8, 2021.

[37] Grynbaum, Michael M. and Becker, Jo. "Murdoch Said He Should Have Acted to Stop the Lies Fox Hosts Promoted." The New York Times, March 2023. [Citing Dominion deposition transcripts]

[38] Robertson, Katie, and Grynbaum, Michael M. "Tucker Carlson's Texts Reveal Glaring Difference Between His Private and Public Personas." The New York Times, March 8, 2023.

[39] Folkenflik, David. "A long list of media companies is worried about Fox News's coverage." NPR, February 2023. [Documents internal Fox emails about Newsmax competition]

[40] "Fox News Settles Dominion Voting Systems Lawsuit for $787.5 Million." Associated Press / New York Times, April 18, 2023.

[41] Miller, Joanne M., and Krosnick, Jon A. "News Media Impact on the Ingredients of Presidential Evaluations: Politically Knowledgeable Citizens Are Guided by a Trusted Source." American Journal of Political Science 44, no. 2 (2000): 295–309. (The Indiana-style rhetorical analysis most cited is:) Young, Dannagal G. Irony and Outrage: The Polarized Landscape of Rage, Fear, and Laughter in the United States. Oxford University Press, 2019.

[42] Bureau of Justice Statistics. National Crime Victimization Survey, Annual Reports 1993–2023. U.S. Department of Justice.

[43] Media Matters for America. Documented analysis of Fox News chyron and anchor language, 2016–2023. Available at: mediamatters.org [Archive of documented examples]

[44] Tajfel, Henri, and Turner, John C. "The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior." In Worchel, S. and Austin, W.G. (eds.), Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Nelson-Hall, 1986.

[45] Lewandowsky, Stephan, et al. "Misinformation and Its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing." Psychological Science in the Public Interest 13, no. 3 (2012): 106–131.

[46] Davis, Fred. Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia. Free Press, 1979. (Applied to political media context in:) Boym, Svetlana. The Future of Nostalgia. Basic Books, 2001.

[47] Kaufmann, Eric. Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration, and the Future of White Majorities. Abrams Press, 2019.

[48] McKay, Tom, and Mosleh, Omar. "Tucker Carlson's Nightly Replacement Theory." Media Matters for America, April 8, 2021. [Documents 400+ segments with replacement-adjacent content]

[49] Anti-Defamation League. "Replacement Theory." Background Resource, updated 2022. Available at: adl.org

[50] Cook, John, et al. "Quantifying the Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming in the Scientific Literature." Environmental Research Letters 8 (2013): 024024. [Documents the 97% consensus figure]

[51] Pew Research Center. "Americans' News Sources and News Attitudes." Pew Research Center Journalism Project, multiple years (2014–2022).

[52] Mitchell, Amy, et al. "Political Polarization & Media Habits." Pew Research Center, October

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In 1925, forty thousand robed Klansmen marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in broad daylight. By then, the Klan wasn't a fringe movement—it was mainstream. It elected governors and mayors, and for many Americans, membership was a sign of status, not shame.

We're talking about it now because history has a way of repeating itself. As extremist groups become more visible under the current presidential administration and some on the right try to rewrite the Klan's history by claiming it was simply a movement of "the left," it's worth looking at what the Klan actually was, how it gained power, and what finally brought it down.

- Jones, Ja'han. "The MAGA movement's KKK revisionism is revealing." *MS NOW* (Opinion), May 2026. https://www.ms.now/opinion/the-maga-movements-kkk-revisionism-is-revealing

 **On the SPLC's 2025 Year in Hate & Extremism report and its "from extreme to establishment" framing:**
 - "SPLC Releases Annual Year in Hate & Extremism Report." Southern Poverty Law Center, June 9, 2026. https://www.splcenter.org/presscenter/annual-year-hate-extremism-report-hard-right-groups-power-government/
 - "Hate Map." Southern Poverty Law Center. https://www.splcenter.org/hate-map/
 - "Frequently asked questions about hate and antigovernment groups." Southern Poverty Law Center, March 2026. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/guides/frequently-asked-questions-about-hate-and-antigovernment-groups/
 - "SPLC's latest 'Year in Hate' report details shift 'From Extreme to Establishment' in Gulf South." WWNO, June 26, 2026. https://www.wwno.org/local-regional-news/2026-06-26/splcs-latest-year-in-hate-report-details-shift-from-extreme-to-establishment-in-gulf-south
 - "SPLC report warns of far-right extremism in Alabama." Alabama Political Reporter (APR), June 2026. https://www.alreporter.com/2026/06/15/splc-report-warns-of-far-right-extremism-in-alabama/
 **On the SPLC's federal indictment and the congressional hearing pushback:**
 - "SPLC releases 'Year in Hate' report amid House grilling over fraud indictment." Courthouse News Service, June 2026. https://www.courthousenews.com/splc-releases-year-in-hate-report-amid-house-grilling-over-fraud-indictment/
 **On methodological criticism of SPLC-derived extremism research:**
 - "CSIS Study on Right-Wing Extremism Under Scrutiny for Relying on SPLC Data, Critics Say It Distorts Threat Landscape." political.org, May 1, 2026. https://political.org/2026/05/01/csis-study-on-right-wing-extremism-under-scrutiny-for-relying-on-splc-data-critics-say-it-distorts-threat-landscape/
**Books referenced on 1920s Klan history and its parallels to MAGA (discussed in the episode, not directly quoted):**
 - Egan, Timothy. *A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them.* Viking, 2023. (As discussed in: "'A Fever in the Heartland' links Klan history to MAGA movement." *National Catholic Reporter*, August 2023. https://www.ncronline.org/culture/book-reviews/fever-heartland-links-klan-history-maga-movement)
 - Gordon, Linda. *The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition.* Liveright, 2017.
 **Additional commentary on Klan/MAGA historical parallels consulted for framing (presented in the episode as one side of a contested argument, not as settled fact):**
 - "Opinion: A direct line from the Ku Klux Klan to MAGA." *Concord Monitor*, July 24, 2023. https://www.concordmonitor.com/2023/07/24/my-turn-the-direct-line-from-the-ku-klux-klan-to-maga-51688420/
 - "From White Hoods to Red Hats: How MAGA revives the ideological legacy of the Klan in Trump's America." *Milwaukee Independent*, April 7, 2025. https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/editorial/white-hoods-red-hats-maga-revives-ideological-legacy-klan-trumps-america/
 - "The MAGA movement is a KKK re-up. The latest Jan. 6 hearing proves it." *MS NOW* (The ReidOut Blog), 2022. https://www.ms.now/the-reidout/reidout-blog/summary-jan-6-hearing-kkk-rcna37960
 - Barbero, Andrew Scott. "Republican Klansmen: The Ku Klux Klan and the Grand Old Party in Prohibition-Era Indiana." Dissertation, Southern Illinois University. https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/dissertations/2236/
 **Psychological and sociological frameworks referenced (standard academic literature, not drawn from the above news sources):**
 - Tajfel, Henri, and John Turner. Social Identity Theory (1970s work on minimal group paradigm).
 - Adorno, Theodor W., et al. *The Authoritarian Personality* (1950). Later revised in: Altemeyer, Bob. Work on right-wing authoritarianism (RWA scale).
 - Mutz, Diana C. "Status threat, not economic hardship, explains the 2016 presidential vote." *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences*, 2018.
 - Bandura, Albert. Moral disengagement theory (multiple works, e.g., *Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm and Live with Themselves*, 2016).
 - Arendt, Hannah. *Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil* (1963).
 - Moghaddam, Fathali M. "The Staircase to Terrorism: A Psychological Exploration." *American Psychologist*, 2005.
 - Solomon, Sheldon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski. Terror Management Theory (multiple works since the late 1980s).
 - McAdam, Doug. Political process model of social movements (e.g., *Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970*, 1982).

 *Note: the psychological and sociological theory citations above reflect well-established academic literature drawn from general knowledge rather than the web searches conducted for this script; readers should consult the original papers/books directly for full citations and any subsequent scholarly debate or revision.*

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*Sorry about the audio on this one, folks! Things got a little wonky! 

Today’s episode is… heavy. We’re diving into something that sounds like a sci-fi dystopia, but is very real: The Dark Enlightenment. Also known as NRx, or neoreactionary thought. And if you’ve never heard of it before, you’re not alone—but its influence is quietly growing in tech, politics, and online spaces. This is not just fringe internet philosophy. It intersects with power, wealth, and governance—and challenges the core assumption that democracy is the best system we’ve got. We’re going to discuss where it came from, what it believes, why it’s appealing to some, and why critics say it’s deeply dangerous.

Brown, W. – Undoing the Demos

Müller, J.W. – What is Populism?

Nature Genetics (re: race & genetics)

Hirschman, A.O. – Exit, Voice, and Loyalty

Piketty, T. – inequality and political systems

Levitsky & Ziblatt – How Democracies Die

Brown, W. (2015). Undoing the demos: Neoliberalism's stealth revolution. Zone Books.

Hirschman, A. O. (1970). Exit, voice, and loyalty: Responses to decline in firms, organizations, and states. Harvard University Press.

Levitsky, S., & Ziblatt, D. (2018). How democracies die. Crown.

Müller, J.-W. (2016). What is populism? University of Pennsylvania Press.

Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D. J., & Sanford, R. N. (1950). The authoritarian personality. Harper & Row.

Bandura, A. (1999). Moral disengagement in the perpetration of inhumanities. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3(3), 193–209.

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. Plenum.

Freyd, J. J. (1996). Betrayal trauma: The logic of forgetting childhood abuse. Harvard University Press.

Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's development. Harvard University Press.

Gottman, J. M. (1994). What predicts divorce? The relationship between marital processes and marital outcomes. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (1986). The causes and consequences of a need for self-esteem: A terror management theory. In R. F. Baumeister (Ed.), Public self and private self (pp. 189–212). Springer-Verlag.

hooks, b. (2004). The will to change: Men, masculinity, and love. Atria Books.

Jost, J. T., & Banaji, M. R. (1994). The role of stereotyping in system-justification and the production of false consciousness. British Journal of Social Psychology, 33(1), 1–27.

Keltner, D., & Haidt, J. (2003). Approaching awe, a moral, spiritual, and aesthetic emotion. Cognition and Emotion, 17(2), 297–314.

Kruglanski, A. W., & Webster, D. M. (1996). Motivated closing of the mind: "Seizing" and "freezing." Psychological Review, 103(2), 263–283.

Real, T. (1997)

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Today’s episode is about a movement that has spent years operating on the political and cultural fringe, but is increasingly influencing mainstream conservative politics, religious institutions, online radicalization spaces, and even parts of the federal government. It’s often called the “masculinist” movement — a loose coalition of Christian nationalists, authoritarian traditionalists, online misogynists, white identitarians, and reactionary political influencers united by a common belief: That modern democracy — especially gender equality — has weakened society, undermined men, and must be reversed.

The Creation of Patriarchy (Gerda Lerner) — https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-creation-of-patriarchy-9780195051858McKinsey: Diversity Matters Even More (2023) — https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/diversity-matters-even-more-the-case-for-holistic-impact BCG: How Diverse Leadership Teams Boost Innovation (2018) — https://www.bcg.com/publications/2018/how-diverse-leadership-teams-boost-innovation Global Perspectives on DEI in Science (ScienceDirect, 2025) — https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266638642500390X  Ni Una Menos — https://niunamenos.org.ar The Feminization of Resistance: #NiUnaMenos as Social Transformative Action — https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2158379X.2023.2251109 Zapatismo and the Emergence of Indigenous Feminism (NACLA) — https://nacla.org/zapatismo-and-emergence-indigenous-feminism/ Decolonial Feminism and Buen Vivir — https://radicalecologicaldemocracy.org/decolonial-feminism-and-buen-vivir/ Ubuntu: "I Am Because We Are" — https://www.jyu.fi/en/blog/i-am-because-we-are-understanding-the-concept-of-ubuntu Ubuntu as Framework for Collective Wellbeing (Frontiers in Sociology, 2025) — https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sociology/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2025.1555236/full The Invention of Women (Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí) — https://www.upress.umn.edu/9780816624416/invention-of-women/  Haudenosaunee Governance: The Matrilineal Democracy That Shaped America — https://msmagazine.com/2026/03/05/haudenosaunee-government-matrilineal-democracy-america-constitution-native-women/ Indigenous Women's Influence on Modern Democracy and Women's Suffrage (PBS) — https://www.pbs.org/native-america/blog/indigenous-womens-influence-on-modern-democracy-and-womens-suffrage/ Rematriation (Michelle Schenandoah's organization) — https://rematriation.org  The Three Pillars of Radicalization (Kruglanski, Bélanger & Gunaratna) — https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-three-pillars-of-radicalization-9780190851125 Kruglanski et al. (2014) — The Psychology of Radicalization and Deradicalization — https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/pops.12163  Carnegie Endowment: Why Gender Is Central to the Antidemocratic Playbook — https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/11/women-lgbtq-democracy-authoritarianism-trump Christian Nationalism in Bolsonaro's Brazil — https://www.christiancentury.org/article/critical-essay/christian-nationalism-thriving-bolsonaro-s-brazil The Evangelical-Populist Nexus and Democratic Risks in Brazil — https://atlasinstitute.org/the-evangelical-populist-nexus-and-democratic-risks-in-brazil/ Christian Nationalism: Brazil to the United States — https://therevealer.org/the-solution-is-jesus-christian-nationalism-from-brazil-to-the-united-states/ SPLC report on Wilson's network — https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/doug-wilsons-religious-empire-expanding-northwest/ Who is Doug Wilson? (sourced overview) — https://dougwilsonsays.com/faq/who-is-doug-wilson/ What Pete Hegseth's Spiritual Mentor Wants for America — https://www.thebulwark.com/p/douglas-wilson-pete-hegseth-moscow-idaho-theocracy-dominionism-christian-reconstruction-theonomy Doug Wilson Didn't Change, Evangelical Institutions Did — https://anthonybbradley.substack.com/p/doug-wilson-didnt-change-evangelical  https://terryreal.com https://relationallife.com/working-with-men/ I Don't Want to Talk About It — https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/I-Dont-Want-to-Talk-About-It/Terrence-Real/9780684835396 Us: Getting Past You and Me — https://www.rodalesbooks.com

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If you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you know we usually live in the deep end of… everything. Politics, policy, democracy on fire, institutions crumbling—you know, light, breezy stuff. And look—we’re not abandoning that. The world is still doing whatever this is. But every once in a while, for our own sanity—and frankly, yours—we need a break. Not a “head in the sand” break. More like a “let’s examine something chaotic, ridiculous, and deeply revealing… but also kind of funny” break. Because sometimes the best way to understand society… is to watch people sprint across a parking lot while being chased by a camera crew. 

Cheaters and the sinister normalisation of our surveillance society | Naomi Wolf | The Guardian

Cheaters host Joey Greco’s stabbing was staged, paid actor says

This Wild 2000s Reality Show Allegedly Faked a Stabbing

With Joey Greco of 'Cheaters' - Los Angeles Times

Atkins, D. C., Baucom, D. H., & Jacobson, N. S. (2001). Understanding infidelity: Correlates in a national sample. Journal of Family Psychology, 15(4), 735–749. 

Brown, B. (2006). Shame resilience theory: A grounded theory study on women and shame. Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services, 87(1), 43–52. 

Coyle, P., Van Doorn, G., Teese, R., & Dye, J. (2025). Adverse childhood experiences and infidelity: The mediating roles of anxious and avoidant attachment styles. Family Process. ⚑ verify publication date

Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7(2), 117–140. 

Freyd, J. J. (1996). Betrayal trauma: The logic of forgetting childhood abuse. Harvard University Press.

Ghiasi, N., Rasoal, D., Haseli, A., & Feli, R. (2023). The interplay of attachment styles and marital infidelity: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Heliyon, 10(1), e23261. 

Glass, S. P., & Staeheli, J. C. (2003). Not just friends: Protect your relationship from infidelity and heal the trauma of betrayal. Free Press.

Gordon, K. C., Baucom, D. H., & Snyder, D. K. (2004). An integrative intervention for promoting recovery from extramarital affairs. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 30(2), 213–231. 

Gottman, J. M. (2011). The science of trust: Emotional attunement for couples. W. W. Norton & Company.

Gottman, J. M., & Silver, N. (2012). What makes love last? How to build trust and avoid betrayal. Simon & Schuster.

Knopp, K., Scott, S., Ritchie, L., Rhoades, G. K., Markman, H. J., & Stanley, S. M. (2017). Once a cheater, always a cheater? Serial infidelity across subsequent relationships. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 46(8), 2301–2311

Marín, R. A., Christensen, A., & Atkins, D. C. (2014). Infidelity and behavioral couple therapy: Relationship outcomes over 5 years following therapy. Couple and Family Psychology: Research and Practice, 3(1), 1–12.

Ortman, D. C. (n.d.). Transcending post-infidelity stress disorder (PISD): The six stages of healing. ⚑ verify full title, publisher, and publication year

Perel, E. (2017). The state of affairs: Rethinking infidelity. Harper Collins.

Real, T. (1997). I don't want to talk about it: Overcoming the secret legacy of male depression. Scribner.

Real, T. (2022). Us: Getting past you and me to build a more loving relationship. Rodale Books.

Tangney, J. P., Stuewig, J., Mashek, D., & Hastings, M. (2011). Assessing jail inmates' proneness to shame and guilt: Feeling bad about the behavior or the self? Criminal Justice and Behavior, 38(7), 710–734. 

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Today’s episode is… unhinged. Truly. We are diving into some of the wildest conspiracies on the internet—Lizard people. Secret cabals. Pizza-based espionage, and the sprawling universe of QAnon. But we’re not just laughing at them. We’re asking: Why do people believe this? What’s happening psychologically, socially, historically…and what does it say about us as a society?

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Happy belated Women’s History Month! Every wave of feminism promised liberation — so why did it keep leaving the same women behind? The feminist waves we were taught to celebrate were not failures of reach — they were strategic choices to maintain proximity to patriarchal power. That choice required the consistent sacrifice of women of color, queer and trans women, and working-class women. The 1990s cultural moment — Lilith Fair, 'girl power,' the rise of the female pop star — looked like matriarchy but was bounded by whiteness, industry gatekeeping, and commercial co-option. That same decade laid the groundwork for the industrial-scale exploitation of young women in entertainment. True return to matriarchy is not nostalgia. It is restoration of what colonialism and patriarchy actively destroyed: communal, non-hierarchical governance led by the women who were here first.

DiAngelo, R. (2018). White fragility: Why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism. Beacon Press.

Fanon, F. (1963). The wretched of the earth (C. Farrington, Trans.). Grove Press. (Original work published 1961)

Freyd, J. J. (1994). Betrayal trauma: Traumatic amnesia as an adaptive response to childhood abuse. Ethics & Behavior, 4(4), 307–329.

Freyd, J. J., & Birrell, P. J. (2013). Blind to betrayal: Why we fool ourselves we aren't being fooled. Wiley.

Gunn Allen, P. (1986). The sacred hoop: Recovering the feminine in American Indian traditions. Beacon Press.

Jost, J. T., & Banaji, M. R. (1994). The role of stereotyping in system-justification and the production of false consciousness. British Journal of Social Psychology, 33(1), 1–27.

Jost, J. T., Burgess, D., & Mosso, C. O. (2001). Conflicts of legitimation among self, group, and system: The integrative potential of system justification theory. In J. T. Jost & B. Major (Eds.), The psychology of legitimacy (pp. 363–388). Cambridge University Press.

Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. Norton.

Raymond, J. G. (1979). The transsexual empire: The making of the she-male. Beacon Press.

Siegel, D. J. (2015). Brainstorm: The power and purpose of the teenage brain. TarcherPerigee.

Temple, S. (1988). Child star: An autobiography. McGraw-Hill.

Wells-Barnett, I. B. (1970). Crusade for justice: The autobiography of Ida B. Wells (A. Duster, Ed.). University of Chicago Press.

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Today, Jen & Carolyn are diving into something that is often framed as a private pain but may actually be one of the most significant public health and political threats of our time: loneliness. And not loneliness as a vibe. Not “I wish I had brunch plans.” We’re talking about chronic social isolation — the kind that alters brain chemistry, distorts threat perception, and erodes a person’s sense of meaning and belonging. Because when we look at patterns of sexual violence, mass shootings, and certain forms of political extremism, we repeatedly see a profile emerge — socially isolated men, often young, often experiencing status loss, romantic rejection, economic precarity, or humiliation. 

• Cacioppo & Patrick, "Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection" (2008); Cacioppo et al., social neuroscience research
•  Kruglanski et al. (2014), "The Psychology of Radicalization and Deradicalization"; Journal of Social Issues
•  Survey Center on American Life, "The State of American Friendship" (2021); Hammarström & Janlert on male social networks
• Moonshot CVE research; FBI's work on domestic terrorism; Windisch et al. on disengagement from extremism
• Surgeon General Advisory on Loneliness & Isolation (2023) — Vivek Murthy
• WHO Commission on Social Connection (2023)
• Cacioppo & Hawkley — loneliness and threat hypervigilance
• Kruglanski's 3N Model / Significance Quest Theory
• Survey Center on American Life (2021) — male friendship recession
• Moonshot CVE / ISD Global — online radicalization research
• Thomas Joiner's Interpersonal Theory of Suicide — also relevant, given overlap between suicidality and radicalization risk in this population
• bell hooks, "The Will to Change" — on how patriarchy wounds men and primes them for violence (strong decolonized feminist frame)

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We tend to talk about violence in politics as something abstract. Policy violence. Structural violence. Metaphorical violence. But today, Jen & Carolyn are talking about literal violence. As in: people who ran for office, held office, advised presidents, or built political movements-and also murdered people. And what’s disturbing isn’t just that it happened—but how often power delayed consequences, softened accountability, or made people look the other way. This episode is about what happens when political entitlement meets the belief that some lives simply don’t matter. And spoiler: it’s not rare, it’s not partisan, and it’s not ancient history.

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Blee, K. M. (2002). Inside organized racism: Women in the hate movement. University of California Press.

Freyd, J. J. (1996). Betrayal trauma: The logic of forgetting childhood abuse. Harvard University Press.

Freyd, J. J., & Birrell, P. J. (2013). Blind to betrayal: Why we fool ourselves we aren't being fooled. Wiley.

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Horgan, J. (2008). From profiles to pathways and roots to routes: Perspectives from psychology on radicalization into terrorism. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 618(1), 80–94. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716208317539

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Müller, K., & Schwarz, C. (2021). Fanning the flames of hate: Social media and hate crime. Journal of the European Economic Association, 19(4), 2131–2167. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvaa045

Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W. W. Norton.

Ridgeway, C. L. (2001). Gender, status, and leadership. Journal of Social Issues, 57(4), 637–655. https://doi.org/10.1111/0022-4537.00233

Watts, A. L., Lilienfeld, S. O., Smith, S. F., Miller, J. D., Campbell, W. K., Waldman, I. D., Rubenzer, S. J., & Fabian, T. J. (2013). The double-edged sword of grandiose narcissism: Implications for successful and unsuccessful leadership among U.S. presidents. Psychological Science, 24(12), 2379–2389. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613491970

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On this episode, Jen & Carolyn ask the question on everyone’s mind: Is AI coming for your job? With rapid advances in artificial intelligence — from automated text tools to industrial robots — many workers are wondering if their livelihoods are safe. We’ll break down the facts, the fears, and the future — and help you understand what’s real and what’s speculation.

Equities close with slight gains as tech shares recover | Reuters

Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, PhD, MEd — Written Testimony, U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, January 2026

The Digital Delusion: How Classroom Technology Harms Our Kids' Learning — And How To Help Them Thrive Again (2025)

Mark Manson, blog post — "The highest-leverage AI prompts do the exact opposite" (markmanson.net)

Holt-Lunstad, J. et al. (2010). Social relationships and mortality risk. PLOS Medicine.

U.S. Surgeon General Advisory (2023). Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.

De Freitas, J. et al. (2025). AI Companions Reduce Loneliness. Journal of Consumer Research, Oxford Academic.

Fang, C.M. et al. (2025). How AI and human behaviors shape psychosocial effects of chatbot use: A longitudinal randomized controlled study. arXiv.

Pew Research Center — AI's Impact on U.S. Workers (Kochhar, R., CNBC/Pew, 2023)

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Job Openings in Professional Services, January 2025

American Staffing Association — White-Collar Job Seeker Data, 2024; cited in SalesforceDevops.net, February 2025

Dario Amodei (Anthropic CEO) — "White-collar bloodbath" warning; cited in Axios, May 2025

LinkedIn Chief Economic Opportunity Officer Aneesh Raman — on entry-level career ladder collapse; cited in Medium/Gorsht, September 2025

Polyvagal Theory — Stephen Porges (nervous system as biological imperative)

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/something-big-happening-matt-shumer-so5he/