Podcast Summary: Strict Scrutiny – “How SCOTUS is Making Project 2025 a Reality”

Podcast: Strict Scrutiny
Host: Crooked Media
Date: September 15, 2025
Hosts: Kate Shaw, Leah Litman
Special Guest: Simone Sanders Townsend

Episode Overview

This episode delves into the increasingly conspicuous alignment between the United States Supreme Court’s recent decisions and the far-right agenda set forth in Project 2025—a Trumpist policy blueprint by the Heritage Foundation and its allied movement figures. Hosts Kate Shaw and Leah Litman critically examine the Court's actions during the October 2024 Term, highlighting how its shadow docket decisions and substantive rulings are making Project 2025 a lived reality, often at breakneck speed and with little explanation. Special guest Simone Sanders Townsend joins to analyze parallels, warn of ongoing threats, and reflect on the historic role of the Court during previous anti-democratic backslides in American history.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Aftermath of Political Violence and Supreme Court Power Shifts

• Charlie Kirk’s Assassination (02:44): The episode begins by referencing the political fallout after conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s murder and the ensuing escalation of authoritarian rhetoric from the President, emboldened by recent Supreme Court decisions that have expanded executive power.
• Online Radicalization & Media Misinformation (03:11): Leah notes how misinformation, especially blaming marginalized groups (notably trans people), both stokes fear and greenlights violence.
  • Leah Littman [03:11]: “It was just a lot to see the violence play out amidst the easy availability of guns and online radicalization ...”

The SCOTUS Shadow Docket and Immigration Enforcement

• Draconian ACCELERATION of Immigration Raids (04:13–07:40):

  • Supreme Court's shadow docket order clears the way for broad, racially-profiled immigration sweeps in Los Angeles.
  • The district court detailed ICE’s indiscriminate detention based on race, language, or presence at certain job sites — factors that “could apply to nearly half the LA population.”
  • Justice Sotomayor’s Dissent [08:04]: “We should not have to live in a country where the government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish and appears to work a low wage job ... I dissent.”

• Hypocrisy and “Colorblindness” Exposed (09:03–09:58):

  • The Justices contrast their tolerance for race-based enforcement with prior opinions (e.g., striking down affirmative action). The supposed “colorblind constitution” is revealed as a cover for racial hierarchy.
  • Kate Shaw [09:03]: “It is intolerable, invidious discrimination to consider race as a way of creating diverse institutions ... but it is completely okay to consider race as you are hauling people off the streets ...”

• Historical Analogs (10:00-11:07):

  • The episode draws sharp parallels between current SCOTUS-sanctioned practices and the Fugitive Slave Act, Japanese internment (Korematsu), and the Dred Scott decision.
  • Leah Littman [09:58]: “That is not colorblindness... That is white supremacy.”

Dismembering Judicial Reasoning: The Kavanaugh "Concurrence"

• Brett Kavanaugh’s Rationalization (16:02–29:23):

  • Hosts sharply critique Kavanaugh’s solo concurrence in the immigration raids case:
    • Relies on unsourced “facts” echoing extremist rhetoric about “millions” of illegal immigrants.
    • Paints a fantasy of humane, efficient ICE processing at odds with mountains of evidence, including testimonials from the wrongfully detained.
    • Justifies racial profiling on “common sense” and suggests those stopped can just “show their papers.”
  • Leah Littman [18:33]: “That is some shitty ass fiction ... This is not a fucking Wendy’s.”
  • Sotomayor’s Response [19:14]: "That blinks reality..."
  • Key Soundbite, testimonial from raid victim [20:13]:
    • “I want people to know it’s not just criminals that are being taken. ... I had a correct visa ... Still they took me.”

• Justice System’s Evisceration of Remedies (24:41):

  • Kavanaugh claims people have “other remedies,” but the majority has foreclosed most civil rights suits by victims of constitutional violations.
  • Denigrates Fourth Amendment freedoms as mere “interest in evading the law.”
    • Kate Shaw [26:42]: “Are you, Brett Kavanaugh, familiar with the Fourth Amendment?”

Administrative Power Grabs

• Judicial Facilitation of Executive Overreach (36:59–42:42):
  • Humphrey’s Executor In Peril: SCOTUS blocks lower court rulings that limit presidential power to “at-will” firing of federal agency heads, furthering Project 2025’s campaign to gut independent agencies.
  • Foreign Aid Litigation: Court grants administrative stays allowing the White House to sidestep congressional appropriations law, rubber-stamping executive “bait and switch” tactics.

Project 2025 and the Supreme Court: Simone Sanders Townsend Interview

(61:47–97:15)

What is Project 2025?

• Sanders Townsend outlines the blueprint’s scope: dismantling the nonpartisan civil service, erasing DEI, restricting the rights of women, LGBTQ people, immigrants, and cementing Christian nationalist governance.
  • Simone Sanders Townsend [65:27]: “Project 2025 is a blueprint ... not about Donald Trump; it’s about instilling Trumpism into every facet and level of the federal government.”

Parallels Between Project 2025 and SCOTUS Decisions

• Pornography and Free Speech (67:38–72:26):

  • Project 2025 calls for criminalizing pornography and chilling online content; recent SCOTUS cases have narrowed First Amendment protections for adult speech online, using language almost indistinguishable from Project 2025’s rhetoric.
  • Game segment: Listeners are challenged to distinguish between Project 2025 quotes and SCOTUS opinions; in most cases, they are indistinguishable.

• Targeting Trans People (73:18–78:18):

  • Project 2025 calls for expelling transgender people from the military and banning gender-affirming care for minors; the Court has enabled these exact policies via shadow docket orders and supportive language in opinions (e.g., Scribes, Scremetti).
  • “Trojan horses”: Right-wing rhetoric frames these bans as protecting children, but actually aims to roll back broader civil rights.

• Parental Rights As a Vehicle for Reactionary Policies (81:00–87:04):

  • Mahmoud v. Taylor: Court rules parents have 1st Amendment right to opt out of any LGBTQ-related school content, mirroring Project 2025's design to hollow out public education and enforce Christian supremacy in curricula.
  • Movement to abolish or gut the Department of Education, restricting “acceptable” content in schools.

• Systematic Dismantling of Governmental Checks (88:05–94:48):

  • Project 2025 blueprint demands elimination of the Department of Education and stacking of agencies with ideological loyalists, which the Supreme Court is enabling by allowing mass firings and deregulation.
  • The Court’s shadow docket is weaponized to allow dramatic, often irreversible administrative changes overnight, without full explanation or process.
  • Leah Littman [93:50]: "They went all in on the unitary executive theory..."

• Historical Parallels Drawn (79:53–80:02, 95:26):

  • The current Court’s “warp speed” policy dismantling mirrors the so-called Redemption Court that erased Reconstruction-era gains for Black Americans.

• Implications and Warnings (94:48–97:03):

  • With Project 2025 “47% complete,” Sanders Townsend warns of impending further rollback: “History ... is unbroken continuity. Just like during Reconstruction, ... that is what is happening right now, and the Supreme Court is not just aiding ... is absolutely complicit.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On White Supremacy and Hypocrisy in Decisionmaking:
  Leah Littman [09:58]: “That is not colorblindness ... That is white supremacy.”
• On Judicial Abdication:
  Justice Sotomayor, dissent [08:04]: “We should not have to live in a country where the government can seize anyone who looks Latino ... I dissent.”
• On the Disparity of Law and Policy Reasoning:
  Kate Shaw [26:42]: “Are you, Brett Kavanaugh, familiar with the Fourth Amendment?”
• On the Nature of Project 2025:
  Simone Sanders Townsend [95:26]: “The vision was so clearly laid out for everyone to see, including the Supreme Court justices. ... We can only conclude that this is, in fact, intentional.”
• On Public Education as a Target:
  Leah Littman [84:13]: “I just don’t think it’s an accident that so many of the doctrinal developments ... are really putting public education in their crosshairs.”

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 02:44–04:13: Reaction to political violence, the Supreme Court’s expansion of executive power.
• 04:13–11:07: Explainer on the Supreme Court’s immigration raids decision; parallels with racialized historical abuses.
• 16:02–29:23: Dissection and ridicule of Brett Kavanaugh’s “concurrence.”
• 36:59–42:42: Examination of the Court’s enabling of massive executive branch firings and administrative overreach.
• 61:47–97:15: In-depth segment with Simone Sanders Townsend on Project 2025 and SCOTUS alignment, including interactive “Who Said It?” segments highlighting the overlap of rhetoric and legal action.
• 81:00–87:04: Focus on attacks on education, “parental rights,” and the potential elimination of the Department of Education.
• 94:48–97:03: Chilling wrap-up: Project 2025 reported as “47% complete”; warnings about the future.

Style & Tone

Throughout, the hosts employ a mix of scholarly expertise and irreverent, sardonic humor, never shying away from calling out hypocrisy, absurdity, or outright mendacity in legal reasoning and political rhetoric. The conversation is accessible to non-lawyers but does not pull punches about what the Supreme Court’s decisions mean for real people, tying lofty legal doctrine closely to everyday consequences.

Concluding Thoughts

“Strict Scrutiny” urgently exposes the synergy between an ideologically captured Supreme Court and the broader right-wing project to remake American law and society through anti-democratic, exclusionary means. The episode warns that both details and patterns matter: every unreasoned shadow docket order, every parroting of Project 2025 language, erodes constitutional guarantees and inches the U.S. closer to a democracy in name only. Listeners are left with a call to stay informed, to “call a thing a thing,” and to vigilantly observe the judiciary’s role in facilitating or resisting authoritarianism.