Shows / The Rational Nationalist
The Rational Nationalist
The Rational Nationalist examines politics, history, psychology, and human nature through a structured, evidence-based lens. Rather than focusing on daily headlines, each episode explores the underlying mechanisms that shape societies, institutions, and political behavior.
Hosted by Lee Ellis, author of The Rational Nationalist, the podcast develops practical mental models for understanding ideology, group conflict, institutional incentives, decision-making, and the forces driving the modern…
Episodes
- The Rational Nationalist
Family, Faith, and Country: When Loyalties Collide
Family, faith, and country are among the things people value most. But what happens when our loyalties to these groups come into conflict? In this episode of…
The Rational NationalistThe Partisan's Gambit | Why Leaders Like Weak Candidates
Why would a political party support a candidate who's less likely to win an election? Because winning the election isn't the only consideration. Party leaders…
The Rational NationalistThe Scoreboard Trap | How Metrics Change What We Value
We measure success because we need to know whether we're making progress. But what happens when the measurement becomes more important than the goal? In this…
The Rational NationalistThe Democratic Cost of Scale
Americans increasingly experience politics as a national struggle over everything—from presidential power and cultural disputes to issues that once would have…
The Rational NationalistEyes on the Prize
In a healthy democracy, political parties are supposed to be instruments — means by which citizens pursue what they believe is the common good. But what…
The Rational NationalistThe Confidence Arms Race
Confidence is useful for a reason. When someone answers quickly and decisively, it often tells us something about how certain they are. But what happens when…
The Rational NationalistWhy Enough is Never Enough
Why can someone who has almost everything remain miserable, while someone enduring hardship can still find contentment? This week on The Rational Nationalist…
The Rational NationalistThe Cost of Winning: How Humiliation Creates the Next Fight
Winning a conflict and securing a durable victory are not necessarily the same thing. Defeat an opponent too weakly and they may believe they can simply try…
The Rational NationalistAsking the Right Question
We spend enormous amounts of time searching for the right answers without stopping to ask whether we're answering the right questions. This week, Lee Ellis…
The Rational NationalistCan Government Legislate Morality?
Passing a law is easy. The costs begin when government tries to enforce it. In this episode, Lee Ellis asks a more demanding question than whether a policy…
- The Rational Nationalist
Political Activation Energy: Why Francesca Hong Lost
Francesca Hong entered Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary as the overwhelming prediction-market favorite. The final Marquette poll showed her far…
The Rational NationalistWhen Elections Stop Having Consequences
Democratic order depends on more than holding elections. Losers must accept legitimate defeat; winners must accept that power is temporary and preserve the…
The Rational NationalistCitizens Aren't Customers
Citizens aren’t customers, and a nation cannot survive as merely a service provider. Citizenship grants rights and protections, but it also imposes obligations…
The Rational NationalistWhy We Vote For Villains
Why do ordinary voters empower bad leaders—and why do political movements so often elevate extremists? In this episode of The Rational Nationalist, Lee Ellis…
The Rational NationalistThe Price of Delegation
Leadership requires delegation. But every time authority is passed from elected leaders to unelected officials, democratic accountability becomes weaker. In…
The Rational NationalistWhen Rules Stop Working
When someone refuses to play by the rules, should you keep following them—or fight fire with fire? Constitutional societies depend on more than written laws…
The Rational NationalistNobody Tries to Join a Cult
Why do ordinary people become devoted members of increasingly extreme organizations? This episode explores the psychology of gradual commitment—from harmless…
The Rational NationalistThe Biggest Asshole Always Wins
Most people assume the majority gets its way. This episode explores why group decisions are often determined less by numbers than by the willingness of…
The Rational NationalistDo We Follow The Evidence, Or Lead It?
Most people believe they follow the evidence wherever it leads. In reality, we often do the opposite. When confronted with information that challenges our…
The Rational NationalistThe Windmills We Create
In this episode of The Rational Nationalist, Lee Ellis examines how individuals and societies create "windmills" to fight. Drawing on the story of Don Quixote…
The Rational NationalistInside the Mind of a Bureaucrat
In this episode of The Rational Nationalist, Lee Ellis examines how personal incentives influence decision-making inside institutions. Although individuals are…
The Rational NationalistCan Government Be Efficient?
In this episode of The Rational Nationalist, Lee Ellis examines why governments often appear less efficient than other organizations and explores whether that…
- The Rational Nationalist
Forecasting Chaos
In this episode of The Rational Nationalist, Lee Ellis examines forecasting, probability, and the challenges of political prediction through the lens of game…
- The Rational Nationalist
The Global Chessboard
In this episode of The Rational Nationalist, Lee Ellis expands the discussion of mass politics from the national to the global level, examining how ideological…
- The Rational Nationalist
The Free Right and the Authoritarian Right
In this episode of The Rational Nationalist, Lee Ellis examines the internal divisions within the modern political Right, distinguishing between the Free Right…
- The Rational Nationalist
Cold War 2.0 - Global Civil War
A look at how the global population had divided itself into transnational camps of Right, Left, and Center. We'll take a look at the Marxist Left and the…
- The Rational Nationalist
Ideals vs. Ideology
We'll talk about how America never really won the Cold War - the enemy just transformed. We'll also distinguish between ideals and ideologies, and how the…
- The Rational Nationalist
Mass Politics and Mongols
Throughout history, most people's level of political awareness was hoping that they would not get their crops burned and their families murdered by marauders…
- The Rational Nationalist
Joan of Arc - The First Grassroots Activist
People love dividing up into teams and killing each other, even when those teams are based on religions preaching pretty much the opposite. We'll examine the…
- The Rational Nationalist
RTC Ep. 6 - Conclusion?
We'll take a look to see what we'll need to get out of the Iran negotiations for it to have been worth risking a nuclear World War 3. Also, we'll start to make…
- The Rational Nationalist
RTC Ep. 5 - TACO Time?
Is Trump changing goals in the middle of the Iran War by substituting nuclear disarmament for "unconditional surrender"? Is he actually negotiating with anyone…
- The Rational Nationalist
RTC Ep. 4 - Mt. Trump-more?
Does Donald Trump's obsession with being the center of attention skew his views on the Iran War? What about the prosecutions facing Bibi, or the potential…
- The Rational Nationalist
RTC Ep. 3 - King Trump's Gambit
The American public's position on the Iran War is surprisingly united and clear - do it quickly and cleanly, or don't do it at all. Trump is wagering his…
- The Rational Nationalist
RTC Ep. 2 - The TDS Pandemic
Trump clearly has reasons for his actions in Iran, but that doesn't mean they're good reasons. Just like weak evidence is still evidence, bad reasons are still…
- The Rational Nationalist
RTC Episode 1 - Obama's Bluff
The first in our series analyzing and drawing lessons from the latest Middle East conflict. We'll talk a lot about organized crime, since relationships between…
- The Rational Nationalist
Role of the Judiciary
This episode examines the proper role of the judiciary, which, contrary to popular belief, is not to rubber-stamp the President's agenda or organize the…
- The Rational Nationalist
On Institutional Capture and Restoring Integrity
The basic thesis is that Americans don't trust our institutions - the media, academia, and, in this case, medical professionals - because many of these…
- The Rational Nationalist
Grow Up Children
A lot of problems in this country could be fixed if a bunch of forty-somethings and older could figure out how to act like adults. Humility and emotional…
- The Rational Nationalist
Totalitarian Tactics
It's not just TDS tearing this country apart - both the left and the right are so threatened by the tyrannical tendencies of their political opponents that…
- The Rational Nationalist
Individual vs. Group Incentives
Why do nations struggle to strategically pursue their long-term interests, even when they're clear and obvious? It's because the nation is an abstract concept…
- The Rational Nationalist
Schumer V. McConnell
We'll take a look at how a petty, partisan pissing match between Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell took the once respected, impartial judiciary and turned it…
- The Rational Nationalist
Civic Capital
A democracy is only as strong as its people, and the American people kind of suck right now. At least we aren't Europeans, I guess. In this episode, we'll look…
- The Rational Nationalist
Credentialist Con
Why do smart people so often act stupidly? As is often the case, we’ve known the answer since the time of the Greeks – it’s hubris, dummy. We’ll talk about how…
- The Rational Nationalist
The Appeal of Power
Power is what it's all about - all of politics is nothing more than the pursuit of power. On this episode, we'll look at why power is so alluring and get a…
- The Rational Nationalist
Schrodinger's Iran
The Iranian people are at it again, rising up against the ayatollahs. How far will they take it this time, and what can/should we do to help? Also, how much…
- The Rational Nationalist
Bully for Trump
We take a look at Trump's foreign policy and what we can extrapolate from the Maduro raid, Iran strikes, and the National Security Strategy. Basically, Trump…
- The Rational Nationalist
International Law and Maduro
A lot of people are saying that Maduro's kidnapping/capture/extradition/etc. violates international law; others say that international law is a joke and it's…
- The Rational Nationalist
Gerrymandering
With Trump's push to redistrict everything under the sun controlled by Republicans - and Newsom's attempt to establish himself as the Democratic frontrunner by…
- The Rational Nationalist
Nature of Reality
How do you know your boss is having an affair with his secretary? We talk about how we use our senses to form the reality we live in, which ultimately is…
- The Rational Nationalist
Two Americas, Two Realities
Facts may be facts, but they can be interpreted very differently. These differences account for the fact that Republicans and Democrats often seem to live in…
- The Rational Nationalist
Grievance Industry
What would happen in a world with no racism and no sexism? For one thing, a lot of people (activists, NGOs, academics, pundits, etc.) would be out of work…
- The Rational Nationalist
BlueSky and the Silo Effect
We look at how Americans have divided political discourse into right- and left-wing silos, and how this makes it more convenient to hate one another with…
- The Rational Nationalist
Realistic Thinking and Russian Policy
We examine the importance of making decisions based on how things are, rather than how we think they should be, using the Russia-Ukraine peace plan as a case…
- The Rational Nationalist
Soft Power
On this episode, we'll consider whether it matters what other countries think of the US (it does), whether we should care (we should), and how much we should…
- The Rational Nationalist
Trump's Executive Authority
We'll take a look at how President Trump has expanded executive authority, how his expansion of executive power compares with similar expansions under previous…
- The Rational Nationalist
Trade under Trump
We'll examine how Trump has shifted the paradigm on trade, and the pluses and minuses of his tariff gambit
- The Rational Nationalist
Trade and Trumpism
We'll examine how a bipartisan consensus on trade led to the rise of Donald Trump, focusing specifically on how the political class ignored the impacts…
- The Rational Nationalist
It's OK to not Know
We'll examine why people feel the need to have an opinion on every single topic, even when they're completely clueless on said topic.
- The Rational Nationalist
What is a Rational Nationalist?
A brief overview of Rational Nationalism, the philosophical framework used on this show.