Why Politics Feels Personal

SPEAKER_00 0:04

We walk around with tensioning our shoulders, scrolling headlines that make our stomachs draw, checking newsfeeds that seem designed to keep us anxious. We tell ourselves we shouldn't care so much. That politics is just noise we can till out. But the stress doesn't go away. It shows up in arguments at dinner tables, sleepless nights before elections, and that nagging feeling that the world is spinning out of our control. What if understanding how politics actually works could lower that everyday stress? What if clarity could replace confusion and agency could replace helplessness? Welcome to Healthy Mind, Healthy Life. I'm Rhea, and this is the show where we explore what really supports our mental and emotional well-being. Not through quick fixes or empty optimism, but through honest conversation and practical insight. Today we're asking a question most mental health podcasts don't touch. How does political understanding affect our daily peace of mind? Joining me today is Henry Kowalczyk, a writer and a political thinker who helped pave the way for the solidarity movement in Poya in the 1970s and 80s. Work that contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union and who now lives in the Chicago area, bringing that hard-won perspective to understanding politics and change in America. Hi Andrew, thank you so much for being on our show today. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 1:41

I am fine, and I'm very happy that I'll be able to share some of my experiences and my book Can America Can America Ever Be Great Again.

The Media’s Trust Me Trap

SPEAKER_00 2:06

So, Henry, my first qu a lot of people my first question is this, right? A lot of people believe that paying attention to politics makes stress worse, and that the healthiest thing to do is to disconnect from politics. But you're saying something different. What do you think people get wrong about the relationship between political awareness and mental well-being?

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Well, the uh I understand people who are frustrated because uh people are a little confused with the mixed messages, and there is also overwhelming message from the media and politics trying to convince people that politics are so complicated, and for most people it's hard to understand. So if you listen to politicians, most politicians say, Trust me. I know better, trust me. When you read uh major publications or you listen to the major news stations, you have the same message. We did it some in we did some investigation, we checked, and we decided that this is the truth, trust me. And then whatever people following those advices vote, they got the politicians in you know in the government, and they feel screwed up. And uh in America, one of the classic examples, which or two basic, let's say even two classic examples, are our faulty or dysfunctional health color policy and immigration policies. Both of them cause a lot of problems. Immigration policy causes a problem because uh all those immigrants are coming as the chaos. Uh people get confusing messages. On one end, they see that wherever immigrants are, they work, they bring benefits to the community. And on the other end, they have the messages that immigrants are the problem, and there's certain you know chaos uh in that situation, and in healthcare is even worse because uh the cost goes up, people uh need more health care because of certain uh behavioral problems, they get to bees or whatever, but also because they are misinformed. So people basically feel that getting even minor uh health issues can bankrupt you. So there's a lot of stress. Then the healthcare policy is uh associated with the employment. So one of the most common sources of stress, which I uh noticed, is that let's say somebody has a job which they find this is very stressful, uh, they don't like what they are doing, but that particular job offers certain healthcare benefits, which other jobs may not do. So it is tremendous stress for the person because person feels uh entrapped in the situation which they cannot make as much money as they want to, or they don't

How Policy Creates Everyday Stress

SPEAKER_01 6:05

do what they want and like to do, but they have to do it because of the healthcare benefits. And the stress of losing that job, possibility of losing that job, is felt. So those are just the two examples. So you see how uh politics can affect us, and uh this is very painful. So, what my observation is that we need to understand better politics. I had uh relatively personal experience with my book, uh, as my English is a second language, I learned it to end the adult. So after I wrote my book, I had a close family member uh who doesn't like politics, doesn't read political books. Her husband is complaining that when he is watching news, she asked him to turn TV on when she is in the room because she cannot handle that. But it just happened that that person uh is my close family member, and I was, you know, uh and she's very good in English because she was educated in states. So I asked her to read the uh first the digital files just to look for some weaknesses because that person is well educated. And then later, after we had a printed book, I asked her one more time to read the printed version. So uh we are joking that she read my book twice. But what what uh after a little being forced to do that as a courtesy for me, that person uh was very happy because she said that she understood the politics better. She said that book everybody should read because it allows you to understand what politics are all about, and it allows you to be more uh skeptical, but also more educated when listening to the politicians and to the media, and uh whatever she she even said that way, which I was very pleased, okay, because it was personal for me, that if everybody read the books, things would be better in America because people would be making better decisions as citizens, and then we'll be all happier because and then uh that uh ability to form the public sphere, uh to to affect the public sphere, uh, would give uh people additional satisfaction because you feel as a fulfill fulfill uh fulfilled person who contributes to society in the very simple and very basic way, and and this gives you a lot of satisfaction in life, which means you you are healthier mentally and you are happier.

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SPEAKER_00 10:10

Absolutely. Uh, thank you so much for that answer, Henry. That resonated a lot. I really like how you um spoke about you gave us examples

(Cont.) How Policy Creates Everyday Stress

SPEAKER_00 10:19

of uh medical medical policies and immigration policies. And I love how you mentioned that in order to get better healthcare opportunities, people have to stay stuck in work or job that they do not really want to pursue, which can lead to a lot of stress. I also think there's a lot of insight in the book that you mentioned. And I really do feel that reading it can give us newfound uh understanding of politics and why it's so important that we read about it. Absolutely. So um, so Henry, if in your book you also write about how political systems actually function. You draw on what you learned in Poland during a time of enormous upheaval. What patterns did you see there that help explain why people feel so powerless in their own political landscape, even in a democracy?

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Well, the democracy is the system which formally speaking, people rule. We basically, whatever politicians do, they have mandate from their voters. What is the problem? That in uh America right now, people lost the trust that they vote counts. They believe that there's certain elites, political, uh financial elites, that they rule the system, and whatever we vote, we get screwed up. And this

Powerlessness In A Democracy

SPEAKER_01 11:54

is uh the core message of my book, because I'm trying to see why, because why we vote politicians, which eventually we don't benefit from their decisions. And what I'm trying, uh I okay, let's maybe go back with because this will be better. Uh, I try to understand, and this is the big part of my book. I try to understand what makes societies prosper. And I look at how America becomes prosperous. I reached the book, Why Do Nations uh fail uh by those guys who won the Nobel Prize for it. And they brought very interesting and from different countries examples how nations prosper and then fail, what has happened. And what I see that always there is a classic dilemma for people choosing between freedom and equality. In order for us to be happy, uh, we need to be free to do whatever, like you know, in the Declaration of Independence it said, pursue happiness. When we have a freedom, we find the job we want, we do whatever we find is satisfying for us, and uh we uh have freedom to be happy basically. When we have that, some of us who are working a little harder, who you know have more talents, become more prosperous. And then, of course, there is a certain concern at certain point how that those people who are richer or more influential can use that to their benefit and uh to harm our abilities to be equally prosperous and so on. So then when we have that fear, we try to establish government rules to protect our freedom, but to the fact we quite often uh choose to protect equality. So otherwise, we we uh agree that certain our freedoms we have to give up in order to make sure that everybody gets equal participation. And this is uh a certain dilemma when you look close into that, which is behind all our problems. Because every regulation which we put in limits our abilities to pursue some of our freedoms, some of our ambitions, talents, and so on. And then when we go overboard with that, we create the system that in those regulations, for all practical reasons, only the riches can have the benefit. We all are in this disadvantage. So finding certain balance in that between equality and freedom, this is the key. And when we look what our objective should be, the prosperous society, what I showed from my examples, and also what's shown in that book, Why Nations Fail, by those professors who gave the Nobel Prize for this, is that prosperous society are those societies where the big section of society, the majority, contribute in economic life freely. They are not corks in the machines, they are the part, independent uh parts of the of the economy. So the question is how we can accomplish that in our modern technological society. And those are the challenges, because this was relatively easy to

Freedom Versus Equality Tradeoffs

SPEAKER_01 16:44

do in all the societies before the industrial era, because when most people in those prosperous societies at that time, like it was in early uh years of America, that most uh citizens were independent, farmers, craftsmen, and so on. So this built the proper prosperity of America with industrialization, technological progress. Uh, the example which I bring in my book, that if let's say a young man worked for the blacksmith in the village, so after let's say working about 10 years, he learned enough to open his own blacksmith shop. If someone starts working for a Ford Motor Company, the chances of the same person to start the next Ford Motor Company after working 10 years for Ford, it is not the same. So that the question is what we can do that in the modern society, people can get the same freedom working in the modern technology, uh, modern uh uh civilization, modern technology, and so on. And this is something which I bring some examples in in the book and some ideas, how we can do it. But this is the core question: how to give people freedom uh back that they are independent. And uh this is something which we will in order to do anything in that, we have to well understand uh the politics, uh uh how we okay, we have to understand how did we end up where we are right now. And one of the examples which I bring in the book, which is I have small, small chapter about it, is uh changing how we are working. Most of us try to get the job when what we should strive to is to be able to work independently. So uh I don't know if you had that experience. I just happened within the family I had some people who worked uh, let's say for Starbucks. And and in Starbucks they had that option that uh when you were a worker at Starbucks, uh

Rethinking Work For More Control

SPEAKER_01 19:29

if you uh sign up for some small uh uh application, you could take a uh shift uh in this store, in that store, depends what you what your ability were. And this gives me an idea that basically we can make it across the board. If you want to work at the uh let's say Ford Motor Company or Toyota Company, you should have the same option. You you shouldn't try to be a worker, let's say from eight to four or whatever that you know the uh time uh schedule is. You should be able to schedule that this week you work only three days, the other week you work five days. And there's the application that can be done. But what it means, that then you will be not signing up for having a job. You just say I have qualifications to be the line worker at Toyota, and then you schedule yourself a week or two weeks ahead, and at the time when you need more money, you will be working, let's say, 40 hours, maybe overtime if this is possible. But then when you feel tired or you have some family situations, you can work half of the time, and this is your choice. What it does, it gives you a freedom. You don't feel well, you don't need to ask your boss to you know give you some days off. Okay, you have a problem with the child, with the and it is your business. But in order to do that, what we have to do, we have to divorce our uh uh regulations tying up health care to the workplace. So basically, in order to give you back freedom, which gives you sentimental comfort, we have to create the medical policy that will be buying medical health care in a similar way like we buy uh car insurance. And we have to completely restructure the medical health care uh and uh diversify and understand the difference what

Untying Healthcare From Employment

SPEAKER_01 22:24

is medical insurance and what is medical maintenance. Because right now, health insurance covers some vaccination, some preventive care, and whatever. Which is of cour I understand from that person who needs it, it is important. But in order to make healthcare working, we have to understand the difference between medical preventive care and uh uh uh medical insurance which covers some medical conditions which might happen but might not happen. So understanding all those that I mean it is hard for me to within three minutes explain a little bit complex issues, but uh simply what I'm trying to say is that in my book I try to give people understanding the differences between medical preventive care and medical insurance, that they should be handled differently. Right now they are combined in one entity, the government gives you everything, and then in America, for every citizen, between what government spends and what we spend, it costs us about $15,000 a year per person. And it is illusion that what government spends, we don't spend, because the government doesn't get the money from the trees. The government tax us, okay? So otherwise, if the government gives us some money, somebody needs to give those money to the government. And uh as you can imagine, the most people who contribute to the government are middle class, those people who work for a living. So otherwise, what we have, we have a debt cost of the health care carried by majority of the population. And by the end of the day, those huge medical corporations have that elite of those billionaires who collect the money. And and when you look at the statistics, uh they are getting richer and we are getting poorer. So it's simply understanding how this happens and how we can change it. And I'm bringing a very simple argument in the book that in most industrial nations, developed nations, the cost of health insurance per person is about half what it is in the United States. It's less than half in France and Germany, two uh very prosperous nations. So simply, if we will lower the cost of healthcare to the health of it is right now, it means that in average there will be additional about $7,500 per person left for everyone. Because those will be the money which uh I wouldn't spend or you wouldn't spend, and those will be the money the government would not tax us to give those money later back to us or to others. So otherwise, uh the family of four, I mean parents and two kids, will have and they disposal additional $30,000 every year. It's like getting a new car every year. So this is understanding how it works and uh what the potential is, and I see that we can make certain political decisions, and I outline it in the book very clearly what to do and how to do it, that we within the next few years we can get a meaningful improvement in that regard.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

Absolutely. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

This is what you want to hear.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Uh I think No, no, of course. Uh uh, I'm I really agree with you, and I think there was a lot of insight in the answer you shared. I think you started on the themes of freedom and choice, and you also took us through the economic situations and the complexities of all of that, and uh the government and healthcare, which are all really important topics that I think people are not really aware of on a deeper level. Uh, your book also sounds like an or like an amazing read for someone who wants to get into politics and start understanding it better. So thank you so much for that. Uh, Henry, if there's a if there's a listener today who's feeling particularly inspired by our conversation today and wants to explore your work or connect with you, where can they find you?

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Well, um, my book is basically right now, everywhere the books are sold. Uh it's on Amazon, it's on Barcelno, uh, is uh uh in many independent bookstores. Uh I think uh is already on Google Books and Apple Books, or will be within a day or two, because uh uh the applications are uh in process. So

Finding The Book And Closing Reflections

SPEAKER_01 28:14

as long as you wherever you go and buy your book, you should be able to find it.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Good. Thank you so much for uh sharing that with us, Henry, and for and for having this conversation with us today. And for everyone listening, I think a lot of our a lot of us have been taught that caring about the world means carrying anxiety when really it can mean the opposite. It can mean finding solid ground, it can mean pursuing choice and freedom. If today's conversation stirred something in you, sit with it. Ask questions that go deeper than the headline. Sometimes it's the stress we carry isn't always about what's happening out there. Sometimes it's about not knowing how to think about what's happening. And that we can change. Thank you, and I'll see you soon.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

Thank you very much, Brahmi.