Episode 336: How To Stay Politically Engaged Without Going Crazy with Leah Litman

Summary

Forever35 Podcast Episode 336: How To Stay Politically Engaged Without Going Crazy with Leah Litman

Release Date: January 20, 2025
Hosts: Doree Shafrir & Elise Hu
Guest: Leah Litman, Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School

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Introduction

In Episode 336 of Forever35, co-hosts Doree Shafrir and Elise Hu delve into the challenging intersection of political engagement and mental well-being. Featuring guest Leah Litman, a renowned constitutional law expert, the episode offers listeners valuable insights on navigating the increasingly polarized political landscape without compromising their sanity.

Self-Care Amidst Personal Challenges

The conversation kicks off with the hosts discussing the concept of self-care, referencing Dr. Pooja Lakshman's philosophy that "if your self-care requires constant willpower, then it's faux self-care" (02:13). Doree emphasizes that true self-care should bring joy rather than stress, questioning activities like barre classes if they don't genuinely uplift.

Evacuation Planning and Preparedness

Elise shares a personal anecdote about being burglarized twice, highlighting the emotional toll of losing personal belongings (03:10). This segues into a broader discussion about emergency preparedness. Doree recounts their experience during the Sunset fire in the Hollywood Hills, where they had to quickly decide what essentials to pack (06:14). They emphasize the importance of having evacuation lists tailored to different timeframes—15 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour, etc.—to ensure that important items, especially sentimental ones like children's "loveies," are not forgotten (07:14).

Political Climate Context: Interview with Leah Litman

Current Political Climate Overview

Leah Litman provides a sobering analysis of the current political climate, noting the unprecedented nature of re-electing an administration marked by election denial and attempts at insurrection (22:00). She draws parallels to historical periods of intense polarization but asserts that the present situation signifies a new era in American politics (22:00).

Political Engagement Strategies

When asked about actionable steps beyond assigning blame, Leah highlights the importance of recognizing that "politics isn't inevitable" (23:53). She advocates for focusing efforts on state and local politics, where change can occur more swiftly and directly (24:44). Leah underscores the significance of holding representatives accountable by "raising the costs" of undesired policies through activism, protests, and direct communication (25:05).

The Role of State vs. Federal Politics

Leah emphasizes that investing in state and local politics can mirror the desired changes at the national level. She points out that "state and local politics oftentimes can change a lot more quickly than politics at the federal level" (24:44), making grassroots efforts particularly impactful.

The Supreme Court and Judicial Reform

Addressing concerns about the Supreme Court's role, Leah reveals her skepticism about the Court acting as a meaningful check on executive power. She mentions her upcoming book, Lawless, which explores how the Supreme Court is influenced by "conservative grievance, fringe theories, and bad vibes" (33:36). Leah proposes reforms such as implementing an enforceable ethics code and limiting the Court's broad authority to select and decide cases (36:27).

Managing Overwhelm and Self-Care in Political Engagement

Leah acknowledges the emotional toll of staying informed in a tumultuous political climate. She advises listeners to curate their media consumption carefully and take regular breaks to maintain mental health. "Figuring out what media diet is going to be and then also learning when to take breaks... is essential" (47:51). This balance allows individuals to stay engaged without becoming overwhelmed.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In closing, Leah Litman offers actionable advice for maintaining political engagement without succumbing to despair. She encourages focusing on manageable actions, such as supporting state legislative races through initiatives like the States Project, and emphasizes the power of informed, localized activism (25:05).

Doree and Elise express their gratitude to Leah for her insightful contributions, reinforcing the episode's theme of balancing active participation with self-care. The hosts remind listeners to visit forever35podcast.com for additional resources and to follow their social media for ongoing conversations about self-care and personal growth.

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Notable Quotes

• Doree Shafrier (02:17): "Shame is not a helpful motivator when it comes to long-term change."
• Leah Litman (23:53): "Politics isn't inevitable, and that can be empowering on both a national scale, but also state and local scales."
• Leah Litman (25:05): "You are raising the costs of them continuing with it. Like, you should try to make things difficult."
• Leah Litman (36:27): "An enforceable ethics code would be a nice place to start and something that I think most people are already behind."
• Leah Litman (47:51): "Figuring out what media diet is going to be and then also learning when to take breaks... is essential."

Key Takeaways

• Authentic Self-Care: Engage in self-care practices that genuinely bring joy and do not require constant willpower.
• Emergency Preparedness: Develop personalized evacuation plans to ensure important and sentimental items are prioritized during disasters.
• Local Political Engagement: Focus efforts on state and local politics where individual actions can lead to more immediate and tangible changes.
• Judicial Reforms: Advocate for an enforceable ethics code and limitations on the Supreme Court's authority to prevent political overreach.
• Balanced Media Consumption: Curate media intake to stay informed without becoming overwhelmed, and recognize the importance of taking mental health breaks.

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By providing a structured and insightful discussion, this episode of Forever35 equips listeners with the tools to stay politically engaged while maintaining their mental well-being amidst a challenging political landscape.

Transcript

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[Dory Shafrier]

Hello and welcome to Forever 35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Dory Shafrier.

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And I'm Elise Hu. And we are two friends who like to talk a lot about serums. And I'm glad we have this show to talk about taking care of ourselves and one another. This year has already been a hell of a year and we're only a few weeks in.

[Dory Shafrier]

Yeah, I know, I know. It's kind of cool.

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[Dory Shafrier]

You know, I saw, I saw something that Dr. Pooja Lakshman posted.

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I think she's the author of Real Self Care.

[Dory Shafrier]

Right.

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It's like Beyond Crystals and Bubble Baths.

[Dory Shafrier]

She was on the show, I think, right. Maybe right before you started. Anyway, she posted something on Instagram that said if your self care requires constant willpower, then it's faux self care.

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[Dory Shafrier]

And I just, I just really liked that.

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Yeah.

[Dory Shafrier]

She said in the caption, gritting your teeth only goes so far. In my experience, shame is not a helpful motivator when it comes to long term change. If you have to force yourself every time, then you might be Engaging in faux self care, not real self care.

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So that's how I feel about bar classes.

[Dory Shafrier]

Yeah. Like if it's bringing you joy, why are you doing it? You know, like life is just sort of hard enough, especially now that I just kind of feel like if your self care is like hard or brings you stress, then like maybe it's work.

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Yeah. Maybe it's labor and not care.

[Dory Shafrier]

Yeah, exactly. So I don't know, that just seemed that, that just really spoke to me.

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Today of all days, you know, I was. We are recording on a Thursday and Thursdays are the day I meet with my Jungian analyst, my therapist, Jonathan. Shout out to Jonathan. And I was talking to him about how I feel like I have kind of a loose relationship with stuff, with things because I've been burglarized twice. And after every burglary I'm just like helpless. And I'm just. My reaction is sort of like, well, there goes all my stuff. And then I have moved every three to four years until the stint in, in LA. I have moved every three to four years starting from when I was 13. And so every time you move, you lose things, you know, and so I have this, I have over the years developed this idea of things being ephemeral. But then this conversation has really come up because it's sort of like, what would you take with you, you know, if your house was burning down? And I was thinking to myself, I was like, what would I take besides the creatures, you know, besides the animals? And one thing is, I would make sure that my daughters all brought their loveies because, you know, they're little stuffed animals that they have clung to since they were babies for comfort. Like, my oldest has a bear, my middle daughter has a dog. My. These are dog stuffies. They're lovies. And then the youngest has a bunny. And they are so loved, these loveies. You know, there's like the stuffing's falling out and the noses are off. And the, the bear, my dog, my daughter's bear, the oldest, the 12 year old, like the ear is all like tattered and hardened because she rubbed on the ear as a soothing mechanism since she was a little baby. And so those are the things, like they have such sentimental value attached to them. They, these are lovies who have been loved too much. You know, it's such that they are so destroyed. But, but besides that, I'm like, what is my lovey? Like, what are those things for me? You know? And they tend to be living things.

[Dory Shafrier]

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. So Two things. One is that I've been seeing so many posts from people whose kids lost their loveies in the fire and like, looking to replace them. And they're often these, like, very specific lovies that, you know, are no longer made and they don't remember where they got them and they have these pictures, you know, it's just. It's so heartbreaking. I did see that there is some company or organization that is trying to find new levies that match their old levies for these kids, but it's. Yeah, it's just devastating. So that's one thing. The other thing is Matt and I had this like, exact conversation because the night of the Sunset fire, which was the fire in the Hollywood Hills, we, you know, I've mentioned this already on the show, but like, we didn't like, really think we would have to evacuate because we're. We were about a mile and a half from the edge of the evacuation zone and our area is pretty urban, but you never know. So we were sort of packing things up and just what you decide to take in a suitcase or, you know, what you can kind of shove into a car is like, very interesting for sure. You know, and we were both sort of like, huh, like maybe we do we really need all of this other stuff now after the fact, I did sort of look around and was like, oh, you know, I probably should have packed xyz. But in the moment when we had, you know, we thought we might have like 30 minutes to pack up, it is sort of interesting to see like, what gets grabbed. I have since. I'm since working on evacuation lists for each of us.

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Yeah, a checklist.

[Dory Shafrier]

A checklist. And this was something I saw on Reddit. Someone posted that when they were growing up, their parents were like, I don't know if they were first responders or somehow their parents were very sort of like up on emergency management. And each person in the house had a list of what they would take. And I also have this list of. It's like, if you have 15 minutes to evacuate, here's what you take. If you have 30 minutes to evacuate, here's what you take. If you have an hour, if you have two hours.

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[Dory Shafrier]

Yeah. And so I think this is helpful because it is like, if you only have 15 minutes, here is what you absolutely need to take. But if you have two hours, like, you have A little bit more time to kind of gather a few more things. But, yeah, I did start to make a list, because Henry, you know, he doesn't. He has stuffies, but he's not really, like, a stuffy kid. Like, he doesn't. He doesn't really. He doesn't sleep with one. Like, he's not that into. But if we didn't have his clock.

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[Dory Shafrier]

Yeah. So, you know, there's things like that where it's like, well, we better remember to take his clock.

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That's his lovey. Yeah, that's. His clock is essentially his love. Yes.

[Dory Shafrier]

Consistency, exactly. We better remember to take his rainbow towel. Like, you know what I mean? There's, like, things like that that I'm like, okay, I need to remember to take these things. We better take his Yodo and his charger. Like, those are the things it's simultaneously, like, overwhelming to think about. And you, like, hope you never have to do it. And, you know, that people did have to do it. And it. And. And also, it was sort of calming for me because it feels like, oh, I have a plan now.

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[Dory Shafrier]

Yeah.

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I was talking to this producer who. One of the disasters that we have actually been waiting for in Los Angeles in a way that maybe we did not prepare for an urban fire. Isn't the earthquake, like, the Big one?

[Dory Shafrier]

Yeah.

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And there's a producer and reporter here in Los Angeles who did a podcast series called the Big One and went through a bunch of different ways that we needed to be prepared for it and the likelihood it could happen and what the actual hours after the big earthquake that happened would look and feel like. And I remember from that podcast series, he talked about how you should tie your shoes. Tie a pair of shoes to a bed post, because if it really is the Big One, like, your material, your. Your belongings go flying everywhere, and you may not be able to find a pair of shoes in all of the rubble, but if you've attached it to furniture, you might have the pair of shoes that you need to get out with. So there's someone I know who has, ever since that podcast, has been sleeping with shoes tied to her bed. It's also kind of the reality of living in a place with so many climate shocks or in a world where climate shocks are becoming inevitable and, you know, part of being human to try and plan and prepare.

[Dory Shafrier]

So totally. I think also, you know, as someone who, like, didn't grow up in LA, I didn't experience the 1994 Northridge earthquake. And I. I don't think I have, like. I still don't think I have, like, fully grasped the enormity of what happened during that earthquake. And that wasn't, you know, the big one, but it was pretty big. Like, the 10 collapsed, you know. And so I was. I was just reading someone. Someone had asked again on Reddit, which is, like, the only social media I really read right now. Like, they weren't trying to ask what a direct comparison was, but they were like, how does the Northridge earthquake, like, compare to what is happening now? And people said, look, if you're in the Palisades or Altadena, what happened with the fires is obviously worse. What. But what happened with Northridge is that it affected the whole city. And because it was 1994, we didn't have, like, the communication or the technological capabilities that we have now. Like, people were cut off. There was no power in the whole city for, like, five days. The free freeway was broken. Like, there. There is a. There's a scale of that disaster that I. I sort of been like, oh, okay. Like, oh, yeah, that can happen. And worse. You know, it is a sobering reminder about where we live, I guess.

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And speaking of sobering reminders, it is not lost on us that this episode is dropping on Inauguration Day in the US the beginning of a new term. And so we did plan some programming or invited a guest that would be appropriate, you know, and. And give us some context to this moment that we're in.

[Dory Shafrier]

It's dropping on MLK Day, and it feels. I don't know, it feels weird to me that MLK Day is Inauguration Day when we are inaugurating a president who. Yeah, like, that feels icky to me. But at the same time, all we can do is, like, try to counter what's about to happen. And I think actually our guest spoke very eloquently about that, and she is just so brilliant and funny and. And, yeah, I really enjoyed our conversation with her. Before we introduce her, though, let's just remind everyone that our website, forever35podcast.com has links to everything we mentioned here on the show. We're also on Instagram @forever35 podc on our Patreon, which is at patreon.com Forever35. We publish weekly casual chats. We publish our Forever35 questionnaire, which is like, some fun bonus content with our.

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Guests that's always, like, surprising and joyful.

[Dory Shafrier]

It's always. Yeah, it's always so funny. Because we've just spent like we do it after our interviews. So we've just spent like, you know, 30 to 60 minutes talking to this person and then we ask them these questions and we learn about this whole sort of other side to them. So I always really enjoy those. And our favorite products are at Shopmy US Forever 35. We do have a newsletter at forever35podcast.com newsletter and please call or text us at 781-591-0390. We love getting your emails, your texts, our emails, forever35podcastmail.com and those get read on our mini apps. If you have questions for us, if you need advice, if you have feedback, if you just if you want to share recommendations, yeah, if you want to share recommendations, just reach out to us. We do appreciate it. All right, Elise, do you want to read, do you want to introduce Leah to our listeners?

[Leah Littman]

Sure.

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I'm delighted to introduce our guest today, Leah Littman, who is a professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School. She teaches and writes on constitutional law, federal courts and federal post conviction review. Her research examines unidentified and implicit values that are used to structure the legal system, the federal courts and the legal profession. You've probably seen her writing because it has appeared everywhere. Not just law reviews, but also the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times. She's also one of the co hosts and co creators of Strict Scrutiny, a crooked media podcast about the US Supreme Court, which is a podcast Academy Award winner, an Ambie Award winner, and an Anthem Award winner for its coverage of the Supreme Court overruling Roe v. Wade. She's also a co creator together with Emily Pral of Women Also Know Law, a tool to promote the work of women and non binary academics. She has so much to say about this incoming administration, this reality that we are now entering or have been inside of, and what we can do to respond to it.

[Dory Shafrier]

I also just want to shout out my sister Karen Vladek for introducing me to Leah and facilitating this conversation happening. So thank you Karen. I appreciate you and we are going to take a short break and we'll be right back.

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[Leah Littman]

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[Dory Shafrier]

Leah welcome to Forever35 we are so excited to be talking to you today.

[Leah Littman]

Thanks for having me.

[Dory Shafrier]

Is there anything that you do regularly, semi regularly, occasionally that you would consider self care?

[Leah Littman]

A few different things. So last two years I would describe my self care regime as attending eras tour concerts and then pulling up TikTok to see what surprise song she played the night before. So unfortunately that's no longer available to me. But other self care routines include regularly slash always trying to get at least eight hours of sleep. Second is swimming. I absolutely love to swim and that's kind of my decompression and de stressor.

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What are your tips for sleep hygiene? Because that's actually one of my intentions. Well it was one of my recent intentions.

[Leah Littman]

Basically I'm just a huge bitch at parties and in scheduling events and I refuse to schedule dinners after 5:30 or 6pm Because I just tell people no, that's not a normal hour and will interfere with my sleep. And then I leave parties and that's basically the primary driver of my eight hours of sleep is insisting that everyone else inhabit my early to bed, early.

[Dory Shafrier]

To rise schedule a boundary queen. We love this. That's amazing. I mean I also like to eat early so I respect this. I will eat.

[Leah Littman]

I would love to. It's just better for sleeping.

[Dory Shafrier]

Yes, it 100% is. Elise is a party animal so she is like I don't get it.

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I like to do first dinner and second dinner and then go out but then my sleep hygiene can be quite rocky.

[Leah Littman]

Well but it might be that like that's your self care and that you know for you the like extra socializing slash dinner number one and dinner number two. Right. Like that makes you feel better than forgoing those things and yeah, that's a good point.

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That's a good point. Well Leah, we are having you on on Inauguration Day 2025 during a time of real transition for the US and a time of fear for a lot of women and marginalized communities. And so one and that's one of the reasons we wanted to have you on because you might be able to put it into context for us. So can you give us some context for this moment that we're in and what we should be watching for?

[Leah Littman]

It's a little bit difficult to contextualize this because we haven't really had an election denier and someone who attempted to engage in insurrection be returned to the White House. Like there's just no getting around the fact that this is different in American history. Of course we can look back on times when the country has been very divided, very polarized, and, you know, there were extreme factions within the United States. And we can look at those parallels and see what it took to kind of get through those periods and the costs of doing so. But there is an important sense in which we are entering into a new era, and that's just kind of the reality. And, you know, we can see, like, some parallels here and there, either with the first Trump administration administration or with previous periods in American history. But in some ways it seems almost foolish to say, well, this is just like this other time and here's what happened. Sorry.

[Dory Shafrier]

No, no, I mean, that's, that's very real. I guess a follow up to that, you know, as I think some of us are still sort of wrapping our heads around what happened and what's to come. You have said publicly that there are things we can do besides assign blame for the election outcome, that there are ways to be more useful. And I guess I'd love for you to address what some of those are.

[Leah Littman]

Yeah. So a few things come to mind. One is, I think, recognizing that politics isn't inevitable, and that can be empowering on both a national scale, but also state and local scales. So if you want to focus your energy on, you know, I want to invest in something in order to see change. You know, state and local politics oftentimes can change a lot more quickly than politics at the federal level. If you look at, for example, the change in compositions of some state supreme courts or state legislators, you know, those happened over shorter periods of time. So one solution is to invest energies into trying to make state and local politics, you know, better reflect what you want national politics to look like.

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We totally didn't set you up for that. But we continue to be running a fund for, or a giving circle for the States Project, which is a nonprofit that is dedicated specifically to state legislative races. And so you can go to our website forever35podcast.com to give there. But I'm so glad that you brought that up.

[Leah Littman]

Yeah, so I was going to say politics at the national level also isn't inevitable. And what I mean by that is, you know, Donald Trump is coming into office saying, here are all of the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad, frankly, monstrous things I plan on doing. And we shouldn't accept that all of those things are inevitable. And you can resist, for lack of a better word, in different ways. You know, you can talk to people about how some of what he is doing is just flatly illegal. You can call representatives to convey your views that what he is doing is illegal and, or just intolerable. And so some of these things, you know, might have the effect of getting them to stand down on one thing or another. You know, you look back to, for example, the first Trump administration, you know, their attempted repeal of the Affordable Care act largely failed. And it largely failed because people occupied, you know, representatives offices and Congress and put their bodies on the line in order to demonstrate the need for those protections. Other, you know, paths were less successful. But even then, that is, even if you don't ultimately get them to stand down on a particular policy, you are raising the costs of them continuing with it. Like, you should try to make things difficult. Don't just sit back and roll over and let them steamroll, you know, the entire country. With all of Project 2025, you bring.

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Up so many of the measures or the proposals that the Trump administration has pledged to enact and how they're likely illegal or possibly illegal. But what happens when the Justice Department is not kind of its own independent entity has, as it has been previously?

[Leah Littman]

So, I mean, we should expect them, you know, to weaponize the law in multiple ways and multiple directions. But even if you think that people in DOJ are basically beyond shame. Right. They have no capacity for shame. And you are never going to convince them, you know, not to do X, Y or Z, or to defend this law or not even then, that's where raising the costs of them doing it comes in. So, for example, take the issue of birthright citizenship. It is obviously illegal. There's just no getting around it. You know, to strip citizenship of people who are born in the United States, that is just the law. And that doesn't guarantee that they aren't going to try to do so or that his Department of Justice isn't going to take the position that they can do so. But if that's what happens, everyone, right, should be writing, saying, marching, protesting, calling representatives, saying this shit shouldn't fly. And again, even if they implement the policy, in some respects, you have to make it as hard as possible for them to do so. So it takes more time, energy, resources, capital. So they can't get away with a bunch of other stuff too gum up the works. Yep.

[Dory Shafrier]

I think one thing that's become sort of very clear is that, you know, what state we live in is very important. I'd love for you to touch on that a little bit.

[Leah Littman]

Yeah. So there are some things that are not going to vary state by state. You know, as Trump and the Republican Party basically prevent us from addressing the impending Climate disaster, it's not going to matter whether you are in a blue state, red state or purple state. You know, this is just going to affect everyone. And the unfortunate reality is you have a Republican Party that is floating the possibility of basically denying assistance to certain regions or states based on how they voted in a presidential election. And this is part of why, you know, I was suggesting at the outset that this is in some ways unprecedented, because, of course, we kind of know, like, Donald Trump was thinking about doing this and then did this in some respects, another fora. So, for example, you know, one of the bases for his impeachment was Ukraine, you know, asking him for assistance. And his response is, basically, what are you going to do for me? You know, are you going to announce a baseless investigation into my political opponent and his family? And so this is now what the Republican Party is trying to do with California, you know, getting them to do who knows what in order to receive aid that they are absolutely entitled to. I think this is terrible, right? This is no way to run a rodeo. It's almost the very definition of a corrupt oligarchy. You know, the idea that the government would actually distribute aid and necessities based on political cronyship and favors like that is not how a democracy that abides by the rule of law works. That is how corrupt autocracies and oligarchies work, and that is what they are effectively trying to do. And as far as what to do about this, I mean, I do think that one of the singular themes of the second Trump administration is just going to be the sheer amount of corruption and grift. And I think this is an angle that people can care about, should care about, and can be convinced to care about. Because, you know, if you think about, you know, what people said motivated them in the election, you know, they cared about the price of goods, they cared about feeling like they were being denied economic opportunities that were out of reach for them. And what do you know the Trump administration is doing, right? Like, they are handing out necessities of life to their friends rather than to the people that need them. And they are making it more difficult for everyone to be able to access the opportunities like we should all have. And I understand the frustration with looking back on the election and thinking like, okay, well, that wasn't the real answer. Right? That glosses over a million different things. But again, getting back to, like, we can't just accept the inevitable and that people aren't persuadable, you know, I do think there are some voters who for whatever reason. Right. Inhabited a media ecosystem where they didn't totally know what was happening.

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Or the stakes.

[Leah Littman]

Yeah. Or the stakes. They didn't believe, you know, that Trump was going to do some of the things he said he was going to do. And I hold out, hopefully, that people can be convinced when they see the things that are happening, if they are informed about what is going on, that this actually isn't the world we all want to live in.

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Rule of law, the Department, Department of Justice, that is one check on executive power and, like, overreach. Right. And if that kind of fails or laws go unenforced or, you know, prosecutors lose all sense of shame, as you described. We also have kind of our government system. Right. That we learn about in elementary school, the executive branch and the legislative branch and the judicial branch, as you have become such an expert or have long been an expert on. And you have a book coming out, I think, later this year. Right. Lawless. We are talking to you before it comes out, several months before it comes out. But. But this feels like a good moment for you to address some of the themes of it without spoiling too much.

[Leah Littman]

So the themes, I think, are captured by the subtitle, which is how the Supreme Court runs on conservative grievance, fringe theories and bad vibes. So, you know, you kind of led into this by suggesting, well, is there another part of government that might be able to check the executive? And I would say do not count on the Supreme Court to do so. Like, they have already proved they are unwilling to do so. You know, they enabled Donald Trump. They cleared the way for him to appear on the ballot after states disqualified him for his role in January six. Then they dragged out the federal election interference case to ensure he would not face trial before election, announced an outlandish opinion granting him broad swaths of immunity, thereby enabling more abuses of office the second time around. I mean, you cannot count on them to do anything. You know, they might rule against the Trump administration in this case or that case. Right. Occasionally. But they are not going to be the meaningful constraint we all want. And I think part of the book is convincing people exactly how rotten things have gotten at the Supreme Court so people don't fall back on the idea that the courts or this court are going to save us. And so we can begin to think about how we want to reform the federal court system when we ultimately convince people that things are not how they should be and are supposed to be is, I think, the silver lining of the book. But basically, you know, it kind of runs through different areas of law and shows how the justices are kind of motivated by this, like, spiteful agenda where they're, like, sticking it to different groups who are not part of the modern Republican coalition and how these bodies of law emerged from political strategies and hurt spiteful feelings that form the basis of the modern Republican Party.

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Who.

[Leah Littman]

Boy, I try to make it somewhat fun and readable, though.

[Dory Shafrier]

Yeah, I was going to say. I mean, I was. I was saying to Elise last night, like, I just love this subtitle. So, yeah, I feel like eminently readable. But. But, you know, you touched on reforms of the federal judiciary. I mean, what. What does that look like again? You know, everyone should buy your book when it comes out. But. But could we just sort of touch on that a little bit? Like, what should we be kind mind when we talk about reforms of the federal judiciary?

[Leah Littman]

An enforceable ethics code would be a nice place to start and something that I think most people are already behind. There is no reason these guys are accepting the sheer amount of largesse that they are. I mean, Clarence Thomas basically has a side hustle that involves finding billionaire sugar daddies who are his bff, who just fly him around the country and let him stay at resorts. You know, Justice Alito got a luxury fishing trip to Alaska. The list goes on. So that would be someplace where I would start. Is basically preventing these guys from being able to insulate themselves in this false reality created by billionaires, where they are just patted on the back for bolstering an oligarchy and reaching deeply unpopular rulings that undermine our constitutional democracy. So that's one bucket second would be, I think, limiting the powers of the court. And here there are many different ways to do so. I mean, right now, the court has basically completely unfettered authority to pick what cases it decides, when it decides them, how it decides them, what issues it rule on. Rules on. And that hasn't always been true for American history. And I think that is something that should be revisited as should their power to frankly not enforce and tell other people they can't enforce certain types of federal laws. You know, they basically nuked the crown jewel of the civil rights movement, the Voting Rights act preclearance system. And that ushered in declining turnout rates in the south, increasing gaps between turnout among black voters and white voters, more mechanisms of voter discrimination. So that's another path that I think we should be considering. And there are many others. There are many tools in this, whatever you want to call it. And, you know, I think we seriously need to Be talking about a lot of them.

[Dory Shafrier]

So we're just going to take a short break and we will be right back.

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When it comes to the lower courts, a couple years ago, the Biden administration said it was really focused on making sure that Biden would be able to make a bunch of federal judge picks that did get confirmed, just as the first Trump administration was successful at. What's the final tally on that? Was the Biden administration successful in getting a bunch of judges picked confirmed?

[Leah Littman]

They were very successful if you look at the numbers of judges who were confirmed. And also I think they were successful in expanding the diversity in the federal courts, professional diversity, demographic diversity. You know, they appointed more public defenders, civil rights lawyers, lawyers who represented consumers and employees, and, and, you know, lawyers of different backgrounds. So I think that was all good. I do think it was pretty unevenly distributed. You know, they, the Democratically controlled Senate and the White House did not revisit this policy in the Senate. That's called the blue slip policy. That policy requires home state senators to give their consent for any nominee to the trial court, like the lowest level federal court in the federal system. And what that meant is in states with two Republican senators or a Republican senator, they just wouldn't give their consent. And so the Biden administration wasn't able to confirm a lot of judges to places like Texas, even though they are in dire need of some judicial diversity in those places.

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But is the blue. Is the blue slip idea, is that a norm? It's a norm or is right? So it's just a norm. So why not Just ignore the old.

[Leah Littman]

Precedent because Democrats love tying their hands and following rules when Republicans don't. And defending institutions that become indefensible is, I think, the nicest answer I can give to that question.

[Dory Shafrier]

Okay, great, great. This is, this is all, this is all great. One thing that I would, I would love for you to clarify for me personally while we have you, is while we have, while we have you, the Convention of States, what is, what is going on with this? Why are the Republicans gung ho about it? And can they really change the Constitution and what do they want to change the Constitution for?

[Leah Littman]

Yeah, so this has been a movement kind of long running. They are seeking to call a Constitutional Convention. Doing so requires a super majority of states to consent. Then, yes, if they do so, they can then amend the Constitution, though doing so will again require the approval of enough states to actually get it through the process as to what they want out of it. We actually did an episode that looked into this on strict scrutiny a few years ago with Grace Panetta, who had done some research and journalism looking into the movement for a Constitutional Convention. And you know, no surprise, this is partially the product of groups that were agitating against abortion rights. You know, they are interested in potentially making the Constitution, or a new Constitution adopt the idea of like fetal personhood that would require abortion to be banned everywhere. So, you know, there are different aspects of the movement, but they are all, not all of them, but many of them are coming from some of the more fringe elements of the modern Republican coalition.

[Dory Shafrier]

How much should we worry about this?

[Leah Littman]

You know, of the top five or 10 worries I have right now, this doesn't make the list.

[Dory Shafrier]

Okay.

[Leah Littman]

But as ever, I don't want to count it out and say there's nothing to see here, you know, nothing to worry about. Because I think if you had asked people 20 years ago, is the Supreme Court going to overrule Roe, they would say no. If you had asked people, you know, 10 years ago, is the court going to grant President sweeping immunity that basically allows them to use the Department of Justice and prosecutorial functions as their own piggy bank? People would say no. If you asked people, you know, eight years ago, is participating in a insurrection disqualifying to be president? I think most people would say yes. If you said, you know, could you nominate someone as Secretary of Defense who has been accused of sexual assault, sexual misconduct, and allegedly has a drinking problem and has written things that seem to be open to remaking the army into some white nationalist army, you know, again, a few years ago, the answers might sound different than they do now. And so I'm not in the business of telling people what need to see here. Calm down. But I don't think that is like immediately on the horizon or on the the tippy. Top of the list of things to worry about.

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Okay, what are the top few things that you are worried about for the coming year?

[Leah Littman]

Oh, that is difficult. I think mass deportations and attempts to implement mass deportations, including attempts to undermine birthright citizenship, are definitely up there. Second is the corruption and grift. And within that I would put, for example, conditioning federal aid on basically pledges of partisan loyalty. I am concerned about, you know, civic society, media, educational institutions obeying in advance and basically self censoring because they are concerned about potential fallout from the Trump administration. Those are some early things I would say that I am worried about. I am also concerned about what they are going to do at the national federal level to try to effectively institute nationwide abortion bans or jeopardize reproductive health care, even in states where it is legal. And those are just some of the things that just for starters. Yeah, for starters.

[Boost Mobile Advertiser]

And Leah Lippman, when we listen to this laundry list of potential concerns and real danger for so many swaths of society, it can be very easy for us to just feel helpless. You know, I think that a lot of us, you know, and our listeners just didn't even want to look outward and follow news alerts anymore following the election, given the promises of what was to come. And so what do you say to folks like us who can just feel like just total overwhelm? Steve Bannon famously talked about flooding the zone with shit. And when the zone is flooded with shit, like, my response is often to kind of like curl up in fetal position. So what do you say to that? What is a more useful response?

[Leah Littman]

I mean, I don't want to neg that and say that's an inappropriate response because I think that's like a pretty normal and also healthy response to when things seem just alarmingly, overwhelmingly awful. But I think a solution or a way to be involved and try to eventually roll back some of what we are likely to see is to come up with a way of doing so that seems manageable. So at least for me, that has involved basically figuring out what media I can consume that makes following what is happening tolerable. You know, I don't read the kind of headlines on the Times, the Post and get alerts there. You know, I read every Alexandra Petrai column at the Washington Post. Love that. That is a way for me to stay abreast of what is going on and get some like gallows humor and smiles in the process. You know, there is a bunch of independent smaller media that is doing wonderful work that again, I feel like does a better job of curating what to focus on. So ProPublica, you know, I think they are doing fantastic work, you know, for legal stuff. I absolutely Love Steve Vladic's 1 1st street and Chris Geidner's Law Dork. That's all things where I feel like, oh, I'm learning what I need to know, but I don't want to just stick my head in a toilet and just like flush endlessly. So figuring out basically what the media diet is going to be and then also learning when to take breaks, how to take breaks to keep at it. You know, I did a lot of like real time blogging during the first jump administration and I just know that is not like a sustainable thing for me to do right now, given other things I have going on. And so, like, I'm not going to do that. That doesn't mean I'm not going to do anything, but it just means figuring out like how I can stay engaged without making myself crazy.

[Dory Shafrier]

That's. I feel like that's, that's a good motto for the next four years, how to stay engaged without making ourselves crazy. You know, Leah, when we, when we started our conversation and we asked you to put this moment in context, you said, well, there's really not much context for this moment, but I actually feel like the last 30 or so minutes you have given us some really helpful context and sort of like action items to carry us through the next four years. So thank you. Where can our listeners find you if they want to follow your work and.

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Get your book later?

[Leah Littman]

Thank you for the book plug. I appreciate it. Lawless is coming out in May. You can pre order it now. You know, @bookshop.org which is a place that will help support independent local bookstores, there's also strict scrutiny, which is the Supreme Court podcast that I co host with two other women who are law professors. I like to think we offer a way of staying up to date on what the Court is doing that is sufficiently entertaining, where you can take it with a grain of salt and not be too outraged by the end of the episodes. So that's another place. I also want Am on Blue Sky. That's my kind of chosen social media right now.

[Dory Shafrier]

Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I really, despite the sort of like serious Nature of our conversation. I really enjoyed our conversation. So thank you.

[Leah Littman]

Well, I really appreciate you having me.

[Boost Mobile Advertiser]

Okay. Shall we enter the intention zone?

[Dory Shafrier]

Let's enter the intention zone. What do you have going on this week, Elise?

[Boost Mobile Advertiser]

Just to update. Last week, my update, my intention was to reflect. Didn't do much. Let me just. That was probably a failed reflection or failed intention. Didn't do much reflection. I did have, as I said at the top of the show, my therapy session, which is always helpful. And I think that was actually quite therapeutic, having this conversation about lost items and our relationships with things and what we would take. So I did some reflection, but I had to pay for that. So that's the best time. Oh, my God. Still, thank you, Jonathan. And then I. This week, for this week, I have realized this is going to be gross. But, you know, we talk about those things sometimes on the show. My pee is like so dark.

[Dory Shafrier]

Oh, no, you're not. I think that you're not drinking enough.

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Really? Dehydrated.

[Leah Littman]

Yeah.

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Like, soon my pee is going to be the color of Guinness. Like, it needs more or I need more hydration.

[Dory Shafrier]

Oh, man. Okay.

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So my intention is going to be hydration.

[Dory Shafrier]

Have you seen those water bottles that have, like, times on them?

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Yes, my daughter has one.

[Dory Shafrier]

Maybe you should get one of those.

[Boost Mobile Advertiser]

I. That's what I need. I need somebody to project. Manage my water consumption.

[Dory Shafrier]

Yeah, exactly.

[Boost Mobile Advertiser]

Tori, what about you?

[Dory Shafrier]

Well, last week my intention, sort of inspired by Bridget Todd, was getting through the day.

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Yes. So good.

[Dory Shafrier]

And I think I have managed to do that, you know, evidenced by the fact that I'm here this week. My intention is twofold. One is there's been a lot of hysteria, I would say, over air quality here in Los Angeles. And there seems to be a consensus forming that if you're not in the burn area, the AQI that like you see in your weather app is probably pretty accurate. And a lot of the talk of like invisible toxins and all this stuff is like fear mongering. Again, this does not apply if you are in the burn area or like, you know, this is if you are far from it and you are not immunocompromised or, you know, have. Have respiratory issues. So I am just trying to, like, take that and just sort of in line with what we were talking about at the top of the show of like weighing risk versus reward. Like, if I'm healthy, the AQI is green. There's no ash in the air. And I really need to take a walk outside or play tennis or something. I think I'm gonna do that, you know? Yeah.

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Yeah.

[Dory Shafrier]

So that's what I have going on. Also this weekend, one of my tennis teams is going to sectionals.

[Boost Mobile Advertiser]

Congrats. Rooting for you.

[Dory Shafrier]

And I'm gonna be in the desert all weekend, so that's. That is exciting.

[Boost Mobile Advertiser]

So it's out like in Palm Springs area?

[Dory Shafrier]

Yeah, it's in Rancho Mirage, so a little past Palm Springs. And Henry and Matt are coming with me, so we're gonna do that. So you get a little bit of a vacay family. Yeah, a little vacay little family getaway. So I'm excited about that. All right, well, thanks, everyone. We appreciate you. And just a reminder that Forever 35 is hosted and produced by me, Dory She Freer and Elise Hu and produced and edited by Sam Junio. Sammy Reed is our project manager and our network partner is Acast. Thanks everyone for listening.

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Until next time.

[Leah Littman]

Bye.