The World According to Jen & Carolyn
The World According to Jen & Carolyn is a podcast where history, politics, psychology, and humor collide in unexpected yet brilliant ways. Hosted by Jen, a community servant with a sharp wit and a knack for digging up the historical receipts, and Carolyn, a licensed marriage and family therapist who expertly unpacks the psychological layers behind it all, our show offers listeners a smart, hilarious, and refreshingly real conversation between two friends with 25 years of stories and opinions to share.
Tiktok: @twatjc
YouTube
Instagram: @theworldaccordingtojen_carolyn
The World According to Jen & Carolyn
Yes-Men and the Fall of Leaders — From Trump to History’s Authoritarians
In this episode, Jen & Carolyn dive into the phenomenon of leaders who surround themselves not with the best and brightest, but with the most loyal and the most sycophantic. Yes-men. Lapdogs. Toadies. Whatever you call them, they have shaped history — and often brought down the very leaders who empowered them. Our jumping-off point is a recent column by Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, titled Why Trump Built a Staff of Incompetent Sycophants. Reich’s argument is stark: Donald Trump, like authoritarian rulers before him, prizes loyalty over competence. And the result, he says, is a government of the unqualified, a culture of flattery, and ultimately, a recipe for failure.”
- Why Trump built a staff of incompetent sycophants | Robert Reich | The Guardian
- Schrecker, Ellen. The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2017
- Fried, Richard M. Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective. Oxford University Press, 1990
- Radosh, Ronald, and Joyce Milton. The Rosenberg File. Yale University Press, 1997
- Schrecker, Ellen. Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America. Princeton University Press, 1998
- Von Hoffman, Nicholas. Citizen Cohn. Doubleday, 1988
- Oshinsky, David M. A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy. Oxford University Press, 2005
- Robert Conquest, The Great Terror (1968)
- Kanan Makiya, Republic of Fear (1989)
- Hannah Arendt (The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951)
- Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy (2009)
- On this Day, August 2, 1986, Roy Cohn Died of AIDS. | by Ken Gault | Think Queerly—By Darren Stehle
- Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W.W. Norton & Company.
- Dana, D. (2018). The polyvagal theory in therapy: Engaging the rhythm of regulation. W.W. Norton & Company.
- Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. Harper & Row.
- Sidanius, J., & Pratto, F. (1999). Social dominance: An intergroup theory of social hierarchy and oppression. Cambridge University Press.
- Janis, I. L. (1972). Victims of groupthink: A psychological study of foreign-policy decisions and fiascoes. Houghton Mifflin.
- Janis, I. L. (1982). Groupthink: Psychological studies of policy decisions and fiascoes (2nd ed.). Houghton Mifflin.
- Fanon, F. (1963). The wretched of the earth. Grove Press.
- Martín-Baró, I. (1994). Writings for a liberation psychology. Harvard University Press.
- Bulhan, H. A. (1985). Frantz Fanon and the psychology of oppression. Plenum Press.
- Seligman, M. E. P. (1975). Helplessness: On depression, development, and death. W.H. Freeman.
- Maier, S. F., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2016). Learned helplessness at fifty: Insights from neuroscience. Psychological Review, 123(4), 349-367.
- Alexander, J. C. (2012). Trauma: A social theory. Polity Press.
- Brave Heart, M. Y. H. (2003). The historical trauma response among Natives and its relationship with substance abuse: A Lakota illustration. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 35(1), 7-13.
- DeGruy, J. (2017). Post traumatic slave syndrome: America's legacy of enduring injury and healing. Joy DeGruy Publications.
- Litz, B. T., Stein, N., Delaney, E., Lebowitz, L., Nash, W. P., Silva, C., & Maguen, S