Background Briefing: September 5, 2021
Our Reactionary Supreme Court Reveals Its Determination to Kill Roe
We begin with the Republican senators who were deceived or deceived themselves claiming as Susan Collins did that Kavanaugh assured her he was committed to settled law when it came to Roe v Wade and Lisa Murkowski got similar assurances from Amy Coney Barrett. With Democratic women having been accused of being “hysterical” by Senator Sasse, the Supreme Court’s right wing majority has now shown its real intentions all along and we will speak with Caroline Fredrickson, a professor of law at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Brennan Center and the president emerita of the American Constitution Society. She is the author of The Democracy Fix: How to Win the Fight for Fair Rules, Fair Courts, and Fair Elections, and The AOC Way: The Secrets of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Success and previously served as general counsel and legal director of NARAL Pro-Choice America, and, during the Clinton administration, was special assistant to the president for legislative affairs. With one man, Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society, having hand-picked all five reactionary Supreme Court justices determined to kill Roe, we assess why progressives cannot find a champion of women’s rights with similar devotion and determination to reshape the highest court to reflect America’s diversity.
The Global Growth of Plutocratic Populism
Then we speak with Jan-Werner Müller, a professor of politics at Princeton University. He is the author of What Is Populism?, Contesting Democracy: Political Ideas in 20th Century Europe and his latest book, out recently, is Democracy Rules and he has an article at The New Statesman, “Beyond the culture wars: Why democracies across the globe are in crisis.” We investigate the global growth of “plutocratic populism” in which working class voters voted against their own interests in supporting Brexit in the U.K. and Trump in the U.S.
The Financial and Human Costs of the Wars Since 9/11
Then finally, with the 20th anniversary of 9/11 a week away, we examine the costs in both financial and human terms of the wars since then and speak with Lindsay Koshgarian, the Program Director of the National Priorities Project where she oversees NationalPriorities.org and is the co-author of a new report at the Institute for Policy Studies, “The $21 Trillion Financial Cost of Militarization Since 9/11.”