Four years after Dobbs, pro-choice identification is at an all-time high and hasn't dropped. Dan Pfeiffer argues the 2024 result was a one-off shaped by unique circumstances; Leah Litman worries the misogyny Americans tolerate may prevent real electoral accountability.
Where this was said
At 1:08:07 · chapter starts 1:03:40
Dan plays a clip of Susan Collins arguing on Fox News that Roe would have been overturned 6-3 with or without Kavanaugh. Leah dismantles this in seconds: Chief Justice Roberts did not vote to overrule Roe — he voted to narrow it, not eliminate it [1] — Leah Litman "Susan Collins claimed on Fox News that Roe would have been overturned regardless of her vote for Kavanaugh because of the 6-3 vote. Wrong: …" 1:04:30 . The Dobbs majority was exactly five justices. Collins confirmed the fifth. Her claim is simply, factually wrong. But Leah's deeper contempt is for the framing itself — 'I disagree with the outcome, I don't regret my vote' — which requires pretending that Brett Kavanaugh has done something worth the documented loss of women's lives, fertility, and health in post-Roe America [2] — Leah Litman "Had Justice Kavanaugh not been confirmed, there were not 5 votes to overrule Roe v. Wade. Chief Justice Roberts did not vote to overrule Ro…" 1:05:08 . The discussion closes on the Maine Senate race where Graham Plattner is running against Collins, and the broader accountability opportunity the 2026 midterms represent.
Susan Collins claimed on Fox News that Roe would have been overturned regardless of her vote for Kavanaugh because of the 6-3 vote. Wrong: Roberts did not vote to overrule Roe — only five justices did. Collins confirmed the fifth.
Susan Collins falsely claimed Roe would have been overturned regardless of her Kavanaugh vote; in fact, Chief Justice Roberts did not vote to overturn Roe, making Kavanaugh the decisive 5th vote.
Most people confuse things they value instrumentally (because they get them other things) with things they value intrinsically (for their own sake). Greenberg's friend stayed in a miserable relationship for years because she was living by her parents' values, not her own — the values map made the mismatch instantly visible.
Jungian analyst James Hollis distills a good life to four things: shut up (have gratitude, stop whining), suit up (prepare yourself to fulfill a role), show up (do the actual work in service of others), and daily get out of stimulus-response to ask what your deeper wish actually is. The whole landscape of self-help slots into just these four bins.
Toward the end of their 20s, many men discover that all the strategies that earned them recognition and success have stopped working. It's a second adolescence — more important than the first — where the question shifts from 'how do I play the game?' to 'who do I actually want to become?' Most people going through it look fragile from the outside. They're actually building a foundation.
Boys are told from childhood not to cry, not to feel, not to be weak — but anger gets a pass. The result: a generation of men who reroute every emotion, including sadness and fear, through the only acceptable channel. Emotional avoidance isn't toughness, it's misdirected sensitivity.
Men need a 'bank account' of masculine status — muscle, money, success — before society grants them permission to express vulnerability. Chris Bumstead can cry at the Olympia and get celebrated. A struggling nobody doing the same thing gets contempt. This creates a tragic paradox where the men who most need emotional support get the least of it.
Emotional sensitivity isn't a defect — it's a high-resolution scanner for human experience. Highly sensitive people pick up body language, tone, and unspoken tension that others miss entirely. In the right environment, that's not a liability. It's a superpower.
Her supervisor told her she was too emotional for the pediatric ICU. So she asked herself: 'What area of medicine can I cry in?' That question led her to psychiatry. Finding the environment that holds your emotional sensitivity isn't retreat — it's strategy.
For someone with RSD, ghosting isn't ambiguity — it's a self-verdict. Their brain doesn't read 'this relationship ended,' it reads 'I am the reason this failed.' No closure means the brain fills the gap with evidence of personal insufficiency, and it keeps filling indefinitely.
More freedom doesn't produce more happiness — it produces more anxiety. Kierkegaard identified this 180 years ago: the more options you have, the more you feel the 'dizziness of freedom,' a paralytic unease at having to choose any single one. The freest generation in history is, by his prediction, exactly the most anxious.
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