Trump’s Insurrection Claims Could Lead American Democracy Off a Cliff

If we are to take Donald J. Trump seriously (and at this stage it’s surely a fool’s errand not to), then the rule of law and democracy are on the line if (when) he becomes the Republican nominee for 2024. What role will the former President’s many many legal woes play in the coming months? A clearer picture is emerging after testimony for the prosecution wrapped in the civil fraud trial against Trump and his adult sons in their roles at the helm of the Trump Organization in New York City this past week. That picture is of a political candidate claiming to be the victim of an unprecedented legal witch hunt. In other words, as the trials proceed within the courts, a political trial is underway on the courtroom steps, at campaign stops, and in the media. On this week’s show, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Professor Eric Posner, of the University of Chicago Law School, author of The Demagogue's Playbook: The Battle for American Democracy from the Founders to Trump, to discuss political trials - their history and their risks.  Next, Dahlia is joined by Madiba Dennie - attorney, columnist, professor, and deputy editor at Balls and Strikes - to recap oral arguments in United States v Rahimi, the big gun case considering whether adjudicated domestic abusers have a right to keep and bear arms.  In this week’s Amicus Plus segment, listeners will have access to an extended version of Dahlia’s interview with Madiba Dennie, analyzing whether election results are moving some of the justices away from the all you can eat originalism buffet.   Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show.  Dahlia’s book Lady Justice: Women, the Law and the Battle to Save America, is also available as an audiobook, and Amicus listeners can get a 25 percent discount by entering the code “AMICUS” at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

11 Nov 20231h 3min

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in one of the most significant—and potentially deadly—cases of the term - United States v Rahimi. The case, a follow on from New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, has the potential to weaponize the court’s Second Amendment extremism against victims of domestic abuse and protect adjudicated abusers. Dahlia Lithwick is joined by gun safety advocate Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, to find out the potential real life-and-death consequences of pursuing originalism literally back to when women were property and muskets were muzzle-loaded. They also discuss why the right is so keen to pursue gun rights through the courts, rather than through the democratic process.  In this week’s Amicus Plus segment, Dahlia is joined by Jay Willis, editor in chief of Balls and Strikes, to discuss oral arguments in a pair of cases concerning First Amendment concerns when politicians block dissenting voices on social media, the Trump-related trademark t-shirt dispute that is barely SFW, and Justice Clarence Thomas’s personal luxury RV loan forgiveness program.  Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show.  Dahlia’s book Lady Justice: Women, the Law and the Battle to Save America, is also available as an audiobook, and Amicus listeners can get a 25 percent discount by entering the code “AMICUS” at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

4 Nov 202346min

On this week’s show, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Slate’s Jurisprudence Editor, Jeremy Stahl. Jeremy is also the lucky person tasked with helming Slate’s coverage of the many many criminal and civil trials of Donald J Trump and Amicus listeners can expect to hear a lot from Jeremy over the next year. After a week of big news across a number of the former President’s courtroom battles, Jeremy gives us a survey of the legal landscape and some vital pointers about what really matters, what’s nonsense, and what we should be watching and listening for in the coming weeks. In this week’s Amicus Plus segment, Jeremy Stahl sticks around to have a behind the scenes chat about how Slate’s jurisprudence team is tackling the thorny issue of reporting on the Trump trial - sorting wheat from chaff and stakes from horse race.  Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show.  Dahlia’s book Lady Justice: Women, the Law and the Battle to Save America, is also available as an audiobook, and Amicus listeners can get a 25 percent discount by entering the code “AMICUS” at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

28 Okt 202353min

As MAGA Republicans engage in extremist arm wrestling in the House Speaker race, and the sins of the 2020 election subversion scheme catch up with Donald Trump’s closest allies, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by brand new MacArthur “genius grant” recipient Ian Bassin of Protect Democracy to take a look at the stakes of this moment for American democracy. An attempt to walk and chew gum at the same time, Protect Democracy’s work focuses on the incremental ways the law can be applied to protect election workers and inhibit disinformation, while also looking to the big constitutional and cultural questions we have to answer if we’re going to reject authoritarianism. Sign up for Slate Plus now to support our show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

21 Okt 202355min

In this week’s big voting rights case, Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, the Supreme Court heard arguments concerning whether to uphold a South Carolina congressional map that is avowedly partisan (everyone agrees it favors Republicans, but partisan gerrymanders are A-OK under SCOTUS precedent). What is disputed here is whether the mapmakers relied on race to reach their partisan aims. A three-judge panel in South Carolina found it to be a racial gerrymander, and threw out the map. In arguments on Wednesday, it became clear that the high court’s conservatives would rather toss out the evidence the lower court used to reach its decision, an unusual move for the highest court in the land, but perhaps the bed it’s made for itself after ruling partisan gerrymanders non justiciable in Rucho v. Common Cause in 2019. And so SCOTUS cos-played as a trial court for two hours on Wednesday. On this week’s Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Leah Aden, senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund who argued the case on behalf of the South Carolina Conference of the NAACP, and Taiwan Scott - a South Carolina voter and individual plaintiff in the case, who says the electoral power of his Gullah Geechee community is suppressed by the gerrymander.  Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show.  Dahlia’s book Lady Justice: Women, the Law and the Battle to Save America, is also available as an audiobook, and Amicus listeners can get a 25 percent discount by entering the code “AMICUS” at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

14 Okt 202349min

Following oral arguments in a case aimed at demolishing Senator Elizabeth Warren’s brainchild - the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Senator Warren to talk about how far this Supreme Court is prepared to go to fulfill right wing deregulatory fantasies.  Next, Dahlia talks to investigative reporter Andrea Bernstein, part of the team behind We Don’t Talk About Leonard, a new podcast collaboration between ProPublica and On the Media. Andrea explains the mechanisms developed by Leonard Leo that have reshaped the courts over the past two decades, drawing a line from Leo’s state-level judicial influence campaigns, to that Alaskan fishing trip involving Justice Samuel Alito, to this week’s arguments in the payday loan case CFPB v CFSA. In this week’s Amicus Plus segment, Andrea Bernstein sticks around to talk us through this week in court in New York City, in former President Donald Trump’s business fraud trial. Why did he choose to sit and glower and what did the limited gag order tell us about what the former President can rant about online and outside the court?  Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show.  Dahlia’s book Lady Justice: Women, the Law and the Battle to Save America, is also available as an audiobook, and Amicus listeners can get a 25 percent discount by entering the code “AMICUS” at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

7 Okt 20231h 6min

Refusing to play the traditional first Monday in October game, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern squint through the cloud of ethics scandals enveloping the High Court to see a docket aimed squarely at unfettering commerce from outside supervision, with a side order of second amendment extremism. What could possibly go wrong? Sign up for Slate Plus now to support our show.  Dahlia’s book Lady Justice: Women, the Law and the Battle to Save America, is also available as an audiobook, and Amicus listeners can get a 25 percent discount by entering the code “AMICUS” at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

30 Sep 202358min

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Ryan Busse, a former gun-industry executive turned gun-safety advocate, who is now running for governor in his home state of Montana. As the right to bear arms for domestic abusers is set to be argued at SCOTUS this term, Dahlia and Ryan discuss how gun culture has been radicalized in order to… sell more guns. They also examine how that radicalization has reached the Supreme Court, and threatens our safety, and our democracy.  Next, Dahlia is joined by Alison Block MD, a family doctor and abortion provider who is also executive producer and host of The Nocturnists podcast’s Post-Roe America season. The season lifts the voices of healthcare workers and abortion providers around the country, scrambling to survive in the confusing legal landscape created by Dobbs. The conversation highlights the impossible bind for red state abortion providers forced to choose between caring for patients and criminalization, and how providers in neighboring states are trying to keep up with unquenchable demand for care.  In this week’s Amicus Plus segment, Dahlia is joined by Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern to discuss why they never ever want to go to the all-male rich dude Lord of the Flies camp that is Bohemian Grove, why it’s pretty shocking that Justice Clarence Thomas did, and how the latest Propublica reporting shows the scheme in sharp relief: interest groups founded and funded by billionaires wanted to end the regulatory state, and they found a justice ready to change his mind and do just that. Dahlia and Mark also discuss why the abortion pill banning Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk is all of a sudden so worried about misogyny.  Sign up for Slate Plus now to listen and support our show.  Dahlia’s book Lady Justice: Women, the Law and the Battle to Save America, is now out in paperback. It is also available as an audiobook, and Amicus listeners can get a 25 percent discount by entering the code “AMICUS” at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

23 Sep 20231h 14min