Last week’s Daily Kos The Brief podcast was our most popular of the year, by far. In that episode, we talked about how to talk to people across the ideological divide—particularly salient ahead of the holidays. I highly encourage you to check it out, either through the link above or wherever you get your podcasts. This week? We’ll take a year-end look at the Supreme Court. 

We first checked in with today’s guest, Demand Justice executive director Brian Fallon, back in March. At the time, he made clear that “[i]f we go to the trouble of getting rid of the filibuster to pass H.R. 1 … but then we forget to do anything about the structural problem of the judiciary that has been utterly ‘Trumpified’ over the years, then these judges will just overturn all these proposals and gut the new Voting Rights Act the way they gutted the original Voting Rights Act.” In other words, if we didn’t do something about the court system, all the legislation in the world would simply die at the hands of those Trumpy judges. 

Nine months later, nothing was done about the courts, and we’re on the precipice of seeing Roe protections eliminated. The Senate is still 50-50, Sen. Joe Manchin of Virginia is still blocking Joe BIden’s signature legislation, the electoral picture is looking tough in 2022, and Republicans have surrendered on democracy. Just how bumpy will that ride be? 

YouTube Video

You can watch the show live right here on Tuesdays at 1:30 p.m. PT/4:30 p.m. ET, but I realize that’s not always the most convenient, so the podcast is a great alternative. It goes live Wednesday mornings at all the usual places, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. A full list of places to download the show is available here.