The Necessary Conversation Podcast
This is a PSA about anger and hate, from a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.
This is Bob Kultgen, host of a podcast called The Necessary Conversation, which he records with his family. On the show, Bob has openly applauded acts of genocide and political violence, dismissed democracy as communism, berated his children on air, dehumanized immigrants, and preached the idea that we are living through a holy war, among many other deeply troubling and dangerous beliefs.
As someone who has watched the Necessary Conversation podcast for some time, I want to offer insight into Bob’s behavior and, more importantly, the way we respond to it. When people live in deep misery, often the only way they know to feel validated is by pulling others into their pain. Misery is profoundly isolating; it breeds loneliness so unbearable that the act of making someone else feel the same thing brings a fleeting sense of relief. There’s a strange comfort in shared suffering, and even a sense of power, the power to influence the emotions of others. It’s an old psychological truth that even negative attention is still attention.
Bob behaves the way he does for two reasons: first, because he is angry and miserable, and second, because for much of his life his pain has been dismissed or ignored. When that happens, behavior tends to escalate. People grow louder, crueler, more provocative, because being hated can feel easier than being invisible. Now that Bob has a platform, he’s able to repeat this pattern on a massive scale. He provokes, not just to express his anger, but to make you feel it. To pull you into his emotional orbit. And the thing about hate, especially self-righteous hate, is that it’s intoxicating. It makes us feel powerful, certain, justified. So we keep coming back for more, unaware that each return feeds the very thing we despise. The result is a cycle: we feel worse, while Bob’s behavior grows stronger and more validated.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t watch the show. In fact, I believe it offers valuable insight into the human condition, and I understand that for this family, the podcast has, even in its chaos, created connection. But I do ask that you stay mindful of self-righteous anger. That particular kind of anger will always lead you down a path that perpetuates the very harm it claims to fight. It hardens the heart, narrows empathy, and dehumanizes others until we lose something of our own humanity in the process.
Let me be clear: your anger and disgust toward Bob are valid. What he says is cruel and infuriating, and your emotional reaction makes sense. My purpose here is not to dismiss those feelings but to highlight that they are, in many ways, the point. That is the function of his words, to provoke, to pull others into the same sickness that isolates him. So allow yourself to feel anger, but don’t surrender to it. Find solace in this: men like Bob are already suffering deeply. Their lives are ruled by bitterness and emotional decay. They pay for it daily in the quiet moments when the performance fades and there’s no one left to hate but themselves.
Don’t let him drag you down to that place. Pity him instead. Pity him because he has built walls so thick that love can no longer reach him. Pity him because his own sickness has corroded every chance of joy and likely will rob his family of any memory of warmth or tenderness they might have had. He is not a villain so much as a warning. And for men in particular, he is a mirror of what happens when we are too afraid to ask for help, too proud to be vulnerable, too hardened to admit our pain. If we cannot let others in, if we cannot show humility and reach toward healing, then Bob is what awaits us. A life ruled by rage, and an end defined by loneliness.
