2025 Year in Review: Anxiety, Control, and the Collapse of Trust in American Politics

In this year-end episode of Shrink the Nation, psychiatrists David and Robby explore why 2025 didn’t feel like a political year — it felt like a nervous system event.

Public trust in government has fallen to historic lows, anxiety has surged, and control has become the dominant coping mechanism across politics, media, and culture. Using psychological frameworks — including anxiety theory, projection, and family systems dynamics — the hosts unpack how uncertainty drove shutdowns, power grabs, tribal loyalty tests, and the erosion of institutional legitimacy.

They discuss why leadership promises certainty when nuance is needed, how social media fragments reality, and why Americans increasingly search for strong figures instead of stable systems. From government shutdowns to declining faith in Congress, this episode examines how fear reshapes democracy — and why simplifying complex problems often makes them worse.

This conversation isn’t about left vs. right. It’s about what happens when anxiety replaces trust, control replaces cooperation, and institutions fail to regulate themselves.

If you’re trying to understand the psychological forces shaping American politics — and what might come next — this episode puts 2025 on the couch.