Expand the Court: The Elie Mystal Interview
How do we protect ourselves from Trump’s MAGA Supreme Court? Expand the court like our lives depend on it, because they do! Elie Mystal, the Justice Correspondent for The Nation, and the author of the New York Times bestselling book Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution, joins Gaslit Nation to discuss urgently needed judicial reform and how to do it.
One of the first things the Nazis did was take over the judiciary in Germany. Republicans have long waged lawfare against our democracy, and now they’re just one election away from establishing a dictatorship. The far-right’s long-game has been met with hand-wringing, complacency, and neoliberalism from Democrats. And now we’re out of time, making court expanding an urgent priority for our nation, should Kamala Harris win.
But will the Supreme Court steal the election for Republicans, like they did for George W. Bush in 2000? That and Trump’s cult of toxic masculinity are discussed in this week’s Gaslit Nation, also featuring Terrell Starr of the Black Diplomats Podcast and Substack. This week’s bonus show, available for our subscribers at the Truth-teller ($5/month) level and higher, continues the conversation with a special focus on dangerous Attorney General Merrick Garland, and answers questions from our listeners at the Democracy Defender ($10/month) and higher for our bonus Q&A. Thank you to everyone who supports Gaslit Nation and makes our independent journalism possible – we could not make this show without you!
See you this Wednesday for our phone bank party with Sister District at 6pm ET – we’re calling into must-win Pennsylvania! RSVP here to join us: https://www.mobilize.us/sisterdistrictnyc/event/642096/
This Thursday at 7pm ET, we’re making calls with Indivisible to hold onto the must-win Senate. RSVP here: https://www.mobilize.us/indivisible/event/628701/
Look out for our special workshop How to Make a Podcast publishing October 24th for our supporters at the Democracy Defender level and higher, unless you grabbed the early bird special in September and signed up at the Truth-teller level and higher!
Join our live-taping about the psychology of Trump and his MAGA cult with Dr. Bandy Lee, author of The Psychology of Trump Contagion: An Existential Danger to American Democracy and All Humankind, October 29 at 12pm ET!
Subscribe at Patreon.com/Gaslit to join our community of listeners, get bonus shows and all episodes ad free, invites to exclusive events, submit questions to our regular Q&As, and more! Discounted annual memberships available!
Andrea Chalupa (00:16):
On the show today is Elie Mystal, the justice correspondent for the nation. He's also the author of the New York Times bestselling book "Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution."
(00:27):
Okay, Ellie, so you know that Star Wars where Leia is like, "Help us Obi One Kenobi. You're our only hope." That's basically this interview here.
Elie Mystal (00:39):
Well, I'm more R2D2 than Luke Skywalker, right? All I can really do is relay the message. I can't actually, there's very little I can do.
Andrea Chalupa (00:49):
We have so many questions here, including questions that were sent to me by listeners. What needs to happen in terms of court reform to protect us from Trump's Supreme Court and his ideologue judges. He packed 30% of the courts with federalist ideologues.
Elie Mystal (01:05):
Court expansion is the only way. Court expansion is literally the only answer because the judges that Trump left on the court like the evil leave behind from a disgusting ex-boyfriend who leaves his toothbrush back at your place so he has an excuse to come back over. The only way to unpack the court like that is with adding additional judges that disagree with Trump judges. One, because judges are appointed for life, there is no kind of easy constitutional way to remove them from power, and two Trump's judges are corrupt and make decisions that are terrible. There's a larger reform issue here that I think packing the courts, both the Supreme Court and the lower federal circuits would help people want, as far as I understand it, people want moderate mainstream center mass decisions from the Supreme Court. They don't want extreme partisanship on either side. I'm talking about people generally.
(02:04):
I personally would love extreme partisanship on my side, but okay, fine. Most people don't want that. They want center mass decisions. Court expansion helps you get there because if you, and I've made this analogy before, if you've got a nine member court, that means you only need five people to make a majority opinion. If you only have to convince five people to go out to dinner, you might end up going out to some places. You might end up going out to the club, you might end up going to some places you ain't supposed to be going out when you only got to convince your four boys, right? When you've got, and I argue for a 20 person expansion, I want to expand the Supreme Court to 29 people. If that sounds too big to you. Note that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the covers California and most of the Western states that has 29 federal judges. So we'll find enough chairs. 29 is not too big. If you've got a 29 member court and you need a 15 vote majority for an opinion, you know where you're going. When you're going out to dinner, you're going to Applebee's, man, you're going to the Olive Garden, you're going to something so mainstream, it just whittles down the edges. When you have to get more and more and more people to agree on an opinion, court packing not only dilutes and diffuses the impact of Trump judges, it also makes the Supreme Court more reasonable center mass body.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Why are people so resistant against the idea, particularly Democrats?
Elie Mystal (03:32):
There are a couple of reasons why they're wrong. One of the most common arguments that I hear is that, well, if Democrats pack the court, then Republicans will just pack it right back, right? My answer to that is twofold. One, so what? Honestly, so what? Right now you are down six three for the rest of your natural life. If the Democrats pack it and the Republicans pack it right back and we go from it's six to three and then the Democrats add 10 and it goes 13 six, and then Republicans add 10 and it's 16-13, you're no worse off. You're no worse off than you were before and not for nothing. You maybe got a couple of years in there with a liberal court where they could do things like, I don't know, protect voting rights, and if the court protected voting rights, it would be very hard for Republicans to ever win a trifecta and allow them to repack the courts in the first place.
(04:23):
So you never know what happens, but fundamentally, so what? You're no worse off if you go tit for tat back and forth, back and forth, and in the kind of worst case scenario, according to these people where every time a new presidential administration is elected, they have to also add justices to the Supreme Court to see their agenda go through. Well, dang, that just sounds like democracy to me. That just sounds like the voters having the say in what policies are governed in this country as opposed to nine unelected unaccountable judges that nobody voted for the tit for tat. That is not a legitimate argument to me, but I recognize that it is an argument that most people make and have heard. That's the biggest reason. I think the second reason, Terrell, that people are squeamish about court packing is the kind of old school Patrician idea that the Supreme Court should be above politics.
(05:22):
If it's just the political body, then it's not helping us and we should. And so doing something that seems and feels partisan to the Supreme Court feels wrong in some way for the auguster institution that is the Supreme Court. And to that, I say, fuck you, all right? Because the Supreme Court has always been partisan. I know that because I'm black and I am very well aware that for a long time after we fought an entire war over this issue, the Supreme Court was like, yeah, no, you're still not people. Yeah, yeah. No Plessy v Ferguson. No, you're still get your ass to the back of the bus. I remember that after we passed the constitutional amendment, the 15th amendment saying that you could not abridge the right to vote on the basis of race. The Supreme Court was like the 15th Amendment. I ain't never heard of that.
(06:11):
What? Huh? We ain't got no 15th Amendment and ignored the 15th Amendment for 15 years. I am well aware the Supreme Court, the current Supreme Court, loves guns more than children and has politically decided to expand the Second Amendment beyond any bounds that had ever been in this country before 2008 decision in D.C. versus Heller. So the Supreme Court has always been a political institution. I would just like it for it to stop being a wrong institution. And my last point is that if you don't believe me, the Supreme Court has always been political, then why the fuck is' it Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court? Oh, I'll tell you why. Because the political process, Mitch McConnell decided that the black president didn't get to have another Supreme Court justice and held that nomination up for almost a year saying that, oh, we were too close to the election to have a Supreme Court nominee. Yet when the situation was flipped, when Ruth Bader Ginsburg made her memory be a blessing passed away in September of 2020 weeks before the 2020 presidential election, McConnell flipped the script and made sure that Amy Coney Barrett was put on the court. The Supreme Court has always been political. The Republicans have always known that now like the Democrats to get in the game
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Politically. What does it look like to actually make that move? What does that process look like to do what you're talking about?
Andrea Chalupa (07:35):
FDR tried it.
Elie Mystal (07:36):
Okay, so I'll answer both of those questions because both important, but I just want to start with of all of the reforms that are out there, of all the potential reforms that are out there, I'm sure we can talk about some of the other ones later. My reform court packing is the simplest, it's the easiest. It's the constitutionally preferred way of dealing with a court that's gone out of pocket because all you have to do to pack the Supreme Court is pass a bill in Congress, have it passed by the Senate and signed by the president. That's it. It's a simple bill. If you get rid of the filibuster, it's a simple bill that only needs a Democratic majority to pass, right? 218 votes in the house, 51 votes in the Senate and one president to sign it and you're done because the Constitution doesn't say a lot about the Supreme Court, but one of the only things that says is that the Supreme Court justices are appointed for life.
(08:26):
So doing all these other things that try to mess with their lifetime tenure, that's hard changing the number of justices, that's easy. It's so easy. We've done it eight times in the past. The Constitution opened with six Supreme Court justices, so the founding opened with six Supreme Court justices. The number of justices is not written down in the Constitution anywhere. The political branches were like, all right, how about six? Then Adams was like, actually, how about five? Then Thomas Jefferson was like, I actually want six. And then Thomas Jefferson was like, you know what? I want seven. And then Andrew Jackson was, I want nine. And then Abraham Lincoln was like, I want 10. And we had 10 justices during the Civil War and then Andrew Johnson came along and people were like, I hate that man. Take away one. And so we went down to nine, and we've been at nine since 1869 except for Andrea's point FDR.
(09:10):
And so FDR is known as a failed court packer. But understand this, in the 1930s, FDR was getting his ass kicked by the Supreme Court, not unlike Democratic presidents today. He was losing all of his new deal cases, five to four, five to four, five to four on the Supreme Court, and then FDR was like, fuck it. I'm going to add Justices. His court packing plan was much more complicated than mine. It was after you get to be 60 years old, and it was a whole senior, it was basically also ais as well, and his plan would've, I think, ended up with eight new justices on the court. And you know what happened? The Supreme Court got his shit together, and FDR started winning his New deal cases five to four. There was one Justice who flipped. His name was Owen Roberts and no relation to the current Chief Justice John Roberts, and it's called by the scholars the switch in time.
(09:56):
That saved nine because Owen Roberts went from being against FDRs New Deal programs to being in favor, FDRs new deal programs, and FDR started winning five to four, five to four, five to four. And at which point FDR was like, great, I don't have to worry about you guys anymore, and moved on with his damn life. So I would love Andrea to be a failed Supreme Court packer in the mold of FDR. What you fundamentally understand is that FDR knew that to have his agenda pass over a recalcitrant Supreme Court, you either had to pack them or break them and he broke them. And I would be fine with that too, but I don't think Neil Gorsuch and Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas are being broken anytime soon. So I want to diffuse their influence.
Andrea Chalupa (10:41):
The reason why we're up against a MAGA dictatorship with Project 2025 is that Republicans, whatever you want to call them, the slave owning class in America, the Confederacy, they've always been on the side of dictatorship domination at the expense of human rights. So why do you think Democrats are on the side of pre surrender? What is it inside the Democratic party mindset that they're not taking the brass knuckles out and laying it all down on the line to preserve our democracy and rebuild it?
Elie Mystal (11:13):
I mean, the simple answer is white people, white males, generally rich white males, especially throughout our country's history that have always decided that they want power over everybody else, whether it's enslaved people, whether it's free black people, whether it's women, white men, really, I think that a lot of it goes to some fear that other people will take their shit, but they have really always, as majority of them, have always kind of voted and supported the domination of everybody else. If you think about it this way, and I like to really try to get people to wrap their heads around this concept, what people like me are fundamentally asking, what black people are fundamentally asking for, what women are fundamentally asking for, what gay people are fundamentally asking for is to be treated like a rich white man has been treated in this country since 1787, alright?
(12:06):
We're trying to still get to where Thomas Jefferson was in 1787. That's all. We don't want anything more than what white people are. In fact, we want less than what white people had in 1787 because we don't want to own slaves. We just want to be treated like a relatively well off white man from the 18th century. That's it. And the reason why we still have this problem is that a lot of white men are like, nah, we will do whatever we have to do to maintain unearned privilege and power over the rest of you people. And while the MAGA Republican, the MAGA SEC of the Republican party is the most out front with that most proud of their desire to own and dominate people, there are a lot of white people smattered across the political spectrum, including within the Democrats who basically feel the same way, who don't, maybe don't want it to be as overt, maybe don't want it to be as cruel, maybe don't want to use the racial slurs when they do it.
(13:12):
I like to say the difference between the fundamental mainstream Republican position on immigration and the fundamental mainstream democratic position on immigration is that the Democrats don't like to use racial slurs while doing the same shit. That's the fundamental difference, right? We're nicer about it while doing the same shit. There are lots of white folks who are on this domination train, and if you don't believe, the problem is white folks, and I know a lot of white people don't believe the problem is white folks, just look at the polls, man, the problem, the problem right now is that you're going to have 60% of white men voting for this idiot dictator orange man, right? 60% white men have voted for the Republican candidate for president, a majority of them in every single election since 1968. Do you know why 1968 was the year that it changed because in 1964 they passed the Civil Rights Act and white men have never forgiven the Democratic Party for passing the Civil Rights Act.
(14:19):
And we're going on the second generation of white men never forgiving the Democratic party for passing the Civil Rights Act. White women not in the numbers of white men, but white women generally, a majority of them, a bare majority of them make the calculation that they are better off, as Chris Rock would say, riding that white thing out just a little bit longer than standing up for their gender. White women have decided they are better off going with white male misogyny than going with female empowerment. A majority of them will still vote for the most misogynist, literal, adjudicated rapist, former president over then the black lady as one white lady who I will not name because she is famous. They've made, women have made the calculation that they are going to make sure that their sons are okay and their daughters will survive.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
I feel like you're also kind of talking about neoliberalism within the party.
Elie Mystal (15:13):
I have a complicated relationship with neoliberalism. I sometimes describe myself as a recovering neoliberal. There are quite a few black neoliberals too. When I think about neoliberalism, what I fundamentally think of is capitalism. The idea that the markets are smart, the markets are right, the markets are fair, and the markets should decide many of our critical government function. That is the distillation of neoliberalism that has come through us, not just from the Clinton era. That is what has been distilled to us since basically Reagan started kicking everybody's ass. If democratic response to Reagan was neoliberalism, and I understand why from a historical perspective it was a mistake, it was a sad road because the markets are not good at deciding the markets are as compromised as anybody else. The markets can be quite racist, the
Andrea Chalupa (16:02):
Markets will poison you for profit,
Elie Mystal (16:04):
The markets say, do not follow the principles of one person, one vote. They follow the principles of whoever has the most money in their pocket wins. The markets are not a moral foundation for a nation, and they're not a particularly good foundation political foundation either. So that to me is what I think about when I think about neoliberalism. One of the things that neoliberalism does, whether or not you are white or black on that train, it makes you kind of value the status quo. What markets need more than anything is the status quo. They need to know that the way things work today are likely to be the way things work next quarter when the line goes up and next year when the line goes up and five years from now when the line has to keep going up. So there's a status quo to neoliberalism that does not allow for radical structural chains. And so how I go from being a kind of college level neoliberal, let's do things in an incremental way that doesn't piss off white folks too much to being a much more kind of radical progressive. I come to that, not because I am inherently radical, but because the changes that need to be made I feel just cannot be done incrementally. We're not taking two steps forward. One step back has just fundamentally not worked.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
We operate under this neoliberal framework because our world does. And so what we try to do, if you're a minority of, for example, you try to fit in, really work the best you can within it. And I think that that has proven to us when we talk about the Supreme Court, et cetera, you brought up this word, Patricia, it impedes us. And I think that that is fueled by this neoliberal desire. Look back on as well and reflect on. But so thank you because the way that you're thinking, you're not particularly radical. I don't think I am either. And I think a lot of people are like that. I've just come to the same conclusion that you have that it just simply doesn't work. And it's not an ideological shift, it's just one intellectually, I think practically it doesn't work. So thank you for breaking it down. I agree with,
Andrea Chalupa (18:07):
And fun fact, America's loneliness epidemic has been growing over the last 40 years when the Reagan Revolution launched ushering in a culture of individualism.
Elie Mystal (18:18):
It's funny because we were talking about this a little bit off air, but the rugged masculinity that Reagan allegedly championed, I never thought that that was what he was actually doing. But certainly today, I think most of us can see that that alleged rugged masculinity has devolved into something far more toxic and frankly pathetic that is emanating from Donald Trump. I always call him a weak man's idea of a strong man. Poor man's idea of a rich man. Trump is not masculine in any kind of real way. He's a little punk who whines and complains about his own problems all the time. There is no book in which the definition of manly man, and you've got this weedy New York carnival barker as its avatar, that simply doesn't work. You were talking about the epidemic, loneliness, the epidemic of men right now in this country. Again, if you just look at the polls, Harris's biggest problem is with men.
(19:18):
She's obviously has huge problems with white men, but across the board, black men, Latino men, Asian men, she underperforms with men. What is that about? And I think part of his men are, it's how he was raised and that toxic masculinity that Trump advocates really appeals to a certain kind of dude with a certain kind of man. I try to be a very different kind of man. This is what I'm saying. We were talking about earlier that toxic masculinity really suggests that you shouldn't show emotion, that you shouldn't show fear. And I reject all of that. Courage is doing what is difficult while being afraid. Can't have courage unless you have fear. Courage is not being so stupid that you don't know what you should be fearing. I'm fucking terrified all the time about the prospects of this authoritarian administration. I don't mind telling people that, but I get out of bed every day and work as hard as I can to stop it.
(20:19):
I don't mind showing that. But for a lot of men, language isn't there. The role models aren't there. And Trump's clarion call to a time when it was simple to be a man, beat your wife and rape her if necessary, and nobody asked you what. Right? That's literally what he's harkening back to, right? Back to a time when women had fewer choices and fewer opportunity when men didn't have to compete intellectually or professionally with women. Those are the times that he's hearkening back to. And for a certain sect of mediocre man crosses racial and ethnic grounds for a certain sect of mediocre men that is really, really exciting to them. And they want to get back to that. I always say that my wife is smarter than me. And a lot of times when you say that, you almost sound like a two bit standup comment. The women are always smarter. Old lady is always remembering, nah, I don't mean it like that. I mean, she's just as more intelligent than I'm, and I'm smart. I'm smart too, but there's a level of horsepower that she brings to the table that surpasses mine, and that was hard for me to deal with at first, right?
Andrea Chalupa (21:25):
Well, as a woman, I could tell you it's called danger mapping. It's inherent in all women.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
I feel the same way about Andrea,
Elie Mystal (21:32):
Right? As a person who defines themselves as a smart person, it is hard at first when you meet a person who is just straight up smarter than you and you want to get into her pants. That's a lot happening at the same time. But I dealt with it. I overcame. I became funnier. I found other skills. I found other things that I could do. A lot of guys, and again, it's not like they don't want that it hasn't been modeled correctly.
Andrea Chalupa (21:57):
Oh, honestly, to all the incel hate listening this episode, you got to learn to love yourselves and take a standup class because women love two things, men that don't want to kill them, and men that make them laugh. If you can master those two things, you'll transform your life and the society.
Elie Mystal (22:14):
Not at all.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
You're not wrong, but I've been traveling for the past two weeks. I'm just now catching up on the conversations about black men and particularly with Kamala Harris. And I find them weird for several reasons. One, I think first of all, this conversation is very cis hetero gendered.
(22:33):
And so just from a fundamental, I'm a queer man, I don't, they're just some elements of the masculinity component that I just don't get because I feel like it's such a straight male dialogue that there are certain ways that I, as a queer man, view safety that's very different from what I'm in masculinity and manhood for what I'm hearing. And it doesn't include me after black women, you have black men who are the biggest supporters around 80%, right? More than overwhelming, 80%. And so I think the conversation at the gist of it, I think because this election is so close, but then also I think we're forgetting the fact that just because we're black, that's supposed to impart some type of wisdom on us that we would make better decisions about not stepping into these oppressive modes and structures. But a lot of times, as Ellie, it doesn't, we could just black men, like men, we could just be just as sexist, just as homophobic as any white men, because as human beings, we are as susceptible to all these isms as anyone else and anything we have to make a conscious decision to step away from it.
(23:42):
However, a vast majority of black men do see the light, roughly 80%. And then you have all these white men who don't. So I do understand the consternation about how the conversation is being framed around black men because 80%, roughly around 88%, but let's just say if it's even 80% of black men, that has an overwhelming majority by any stretch of the imagination. So I think that there should be a proper framing about how we talk about men.
Elie Mystal (24:09):
I refuse to have a conversation that denigrates black men in this election when, as I've already stated, our problem is so clearly white men, 60% of white men are going to vote for Harris. Deal with that, right? Don't come to black and be like, why aren't you voting? Get MIT Romney out there and ask white men, what the hell is wrong with y'all? Because that's where the electoral problem is. A b, I think people who are shocked, surprised, whatever about Trump's black male support simply haven't actually paid attention to how black men vote in this country. Trump's going to get between 10 and 15% of the black male vote just like Mitt Romney did, just like John McCain did, just like George W. Bush did. About 10 to 15% of brothers are Republican. Now, we can talk about why, and we can talk about how that's disappointing to me.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
We know everybody in that family like that. Ellie. I mean, that's the whole thing. None of this shit is surprising to us. There is an uncle, we usually call him the crazy uncle or whoever who is at the family picnic, and it's like, okay, this black ass coming over here and talking to all this shit. So
Elie Mystal (25:21):
In my family, we've got an aunt who shows up to all the shit in Republican gear, whether that gear is Maggie gear or McCain gear. She's the Republican in the family, and we all dunk on her, but she's the aunt. So nobody, what are you going to do? There are in fact, black Republicans right now, the current crop of black Republicans are a little bit more, I think, proud of their bullshit than the previous crops because when you're just a John McCain voter, you're showing up at the cookout being like, you want low taxes, and that's only here amount. I want the low taxes. And so now you're like, fuck immigrants. Yeah. So it's a little bit, it hits different, but it's the same 10 to 15% of people that are always there. And if you didn't know that, then that's you are telling on yourself about how much you ignore the black male vote in every other presidential election, if you're surprised by this.
(26:14):
So with all of that said, with understanding that the real problem was white men with understanding that Kamala Harris is going to get the same black vote, Donald Trump is going to get the same black vote as Republicans always get. I do perceive that writ large, there is a male problem with the MAGA movement. And again, I think it goes back because the MAGA movement tells a certain kind of disaffected male exactly what they want to hear. And it has been some time since disaffected males were told exactly what they want to hear in this country. And Charlie, you'll like this. I know you travel a lot. I'll go a little bit more historical. This is a problem every society has, and frankly every society has had throughout human history. What do you do with your young, aggressive, lonely male population that is happening across Europe right now?
(27:15):
It's always happening in Africa. If you pay any attention to Africa, it's happening here. Now, historically, what has been the answer? I'll tell you, war, send them dudes off to war. Let them war it out with each other. That will call the population literally when they come home, the ones who make it will be a little bit less aggressive. That's literally been the historical answer to this problem throughout history. We are not doing that. Thank God. I am not saying I hate Trump. I don't hate Trump enough to bring back the fucking draft. So thank God we're not sending young men off to die. But that does mean we have now the domestic problem of disaffected, angry, unmarried youth, male youth, and we have to figure out what to do with them. And nobody has come up with a good answer. But Trump is giving them, the Trump is giving them the answer that they want to hear. Women have too many rights.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
But a DF, I've been traveling around the country, and one of the things that you see here is that a lot of their strongest support is coming from young men, like with their alternative for Deutscheland. And so I think that here's the bottom line to add to your response. This male problem has nothing to do with Kamala. And I don't think that there's anything that she alone can do about it because this is a societal problem that preceded her.
Elie Mystal (28:43):
Come out there and do a Lady Macbeth unsexed me hear speech, and it wouldn't make a difference. This problem is beyond her. She wins If women show up, we kind of at some level understand that her support amongst men is going to be her support amongst men. We understand this kind of long-term misogyny and sexism problem that we have in this country, and frankly all over the world. But we are one of the only advanced democracies that has never had a woman leader. Most of the other advanced democracies on this map have figured this out. And one of the reasons they figured it out is because women show up in our country. Women don't. Women haven't historically. Maybe this is the November election, maybe this is the election. Put like this. Again, I like to use historical examples and think about this in kind of court terms.
(29:33):
So there was this big row right back before the passage in the 19th Amendment, this big thought that the problem with universal suffrage is that women, white women, because when they were talking about the 19th Amendment, they were really only thinking about white women. That white women would vote as a block, and if they voted as a block, they would be an unstoppable political force because men would always be disparate between their different part, partisan concerns. But if women voted together, women would run the country. And men were very much afraid of this. You see an example of this with the passage of prohibition, right? The fact that women got prohibition passed without the vote. And remember as much as we kind of shit on prohibition. Now remember what that really was? That was an anti domestic violence amendment. Understand the reason why we had prohibition, the reason why that ended up passing was that far too many men were going out, getting drunk, coming home and beating the shit out of their wives in a world where that was not a crime.
(30:32):
So to handle that, to try to put a stop to that prohibition, literally taking the drink away was America's first response as opposed to, I don't know, putting wife beaters in jail. That was a bridge too far. Let's deal with the alcohol. But that's where prohibition comes from, and that was largely led by women who advocated and pushed that through without even having the right to vote. So now when you give the 18th amendment prohibition, now the 19th Amendment comes on, now women have the right to vote. The thought was women would be the most important political force in this country. It didn't happen. And that's because, well, first of all, because at first you only gave white women the vote, but the most important thing is that it turned out women were more likely to vote with their husbands than they were to vote as a block. And that has limited women's power since the passage of the 19th Amendment, the inability for women to vote as a block, the inability for women to basically stick together. And we will see in this election whether or not that changes in any kind of significant way because frankly, if white women vote for Harris 53, 50 4%, Republicans, Trump can't win. It's as simple as that. If white women vote for Trump, 52%, Trump will win. If white women vote for Harris, 52% Harris will win. It's as simple as that.
Andrea Chalupa (31:52):
I have a question from a listener, two listeners, actually. We have these Gaslit Nation political salons we're doing on Mondays over Zoom because we need to find out whether enough white women are going to vote to save this country. I hear what you're saying. White women want to protect their sons from DEI. Russian propaganda is really good in striking this nerve. Russia full on produced a video of airplane, and the passengers are waiting in line for the bathroom, and the black passengers get to cut to the front of line. Those are the values of the West. It's all these black people get a cut in front of line to get into Harvard and all these places, and I hear it when I phone bank to states like Wisconsin, where the white proud Trump voters are saying, why would I vote for Kamala Harris? What has she ever done?
(32:38):
She is a DEI hire. Meanwhile, Trump is a trust fund kid who inherited a fortune from his father and then blew it all through six bankruptcies. If you are voting for Kamala Harris, if you are talking to your white aunts, your white friends from college, your sorority sisters, if you're getting them to vote for Kamala Harris, you are protecting your kids' future from the climate crisis, from the onslaught of corporate greed that's coming, because we just had a pro-Union president with Biden and Kamala Harris is promising to continue that fight. No one is protecting their white sons and white daughters by voting for Trump. In fact, you are killing all of civilization if you do that. So that's number one. This question I have for you is from our listeners. If the MAGA operation, the legal warfare that they're waging against us, what they're doing in Georgia trying to openly steal Georgia, if they bring a case and at an extremely close election to challenge electoral college vote and they take it to the Supreme Court, do you think that the Supreme Court will vote in Trump's favor and we have a Florida 2000 election decided by the Supreme Court and Trump gets in, and the second question, this is again brought up by a Gaston Nation listener.
(33:47):
Is there any benefit of a group of independents preempting that by filing some sort of claim, some sort of legal maneuver to get ahead of that? Is that possible?
Elie Mystal (33:58):
Yeah, to answer the first question, yes, of course the Supreme Court will give the election to Trump, and I don't think there's any doubt about that. I don't know. It's not a reasonable position to think that the Supreme Court is going to rule fairly not after last term, not after what they did with Trump immunity. You have to not after Samuel Alitos wife's flagpole, you have to now assume that Supreme Court will do everything it can to put its thumb on the scales to help Trump win. Which is why I've been saying it cannot come down to one state. If it comes down to one state, if the Supreme Court only has to flip one state from Harris to Trump to make Trump the winner, the Supreme Court will do that. John Roberts will do that. They are far more in the tank for Trump than I think most people realize.
(34:41):
If it comes down to three states, four states, if they have to flip multiple states to make Trump win, I don't think they can get that done. I don't think they can get that done simply because I think that at that point, the public revolts essentially, I think you risk literally having a civil war on your hands. If the Supreme Court has to flip. It's not just Pennsylvania and North Carolina and Georgia and Arizona all into the Trump category to make Trump win. I don't think that people would stand. But if it's one state, if it's a Florida type situation, if you just got a flip Pennsylvania from blue to red, and you can do that through a legal maneuver at the Supreme Court, I absolutely think the Supreme Court will do that. How do you get ahead of that with a lawsuit? No, you don't bring the idea that you bring a lawsuit doesn't help you if you understand just how in the tank the Supreme Court is for Trump.
(35:29):
Because if you bring a lawsuit that ends up at the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court will rule in whatever way helps Trump the most, doesn't matter the quality of your legal arguments. I deal with this a lot with people making arguments that they think that should be made to the Supreme Court, pointing out the Republican justices either their own hypocrisy or their own alleged principles. And I keep trying to tell people, the Republican justices do not give a fuck. They understand that they are hypocrites and they don't care. What they want is the outcome. What they want are Trumpian Republican outcomes, and they will do or say whatever they have to say to quote Louis Gossett Jr. Fair or unfair, to get their way. That's what they're going to do. No, there is no preemptive lawsuit that freaking helps. The only thing that helps is for Harris to win, not just by one state, but in an electoral college landslide. I do not think the Supreme Court could overturn an electoral college landslide, but if it's close, absolutely. The Supreme Court will give this election to Trump.
Andrea Chalupa (36:41):
Our discussion continues, and you can get access to that by setting up at the truth tone level or higher on Patreon. Gaslit Nation hosts come as you are political salons every Monday at 4:00 PM Eastern can't make it live. Recordings are available to our community on Patreon. Our salons are your space to vent, ask questions, and connect with other listeners who also really, really hate Nazis. Mark your calendar for our special events in October, including our How to Make a Podcast Workshop Publishing Thursday, October 24th, and our live taping with Dr. Bandi Lee, October 29 at 12:00 PM Eastern on the psychology of Trump and his MAGA Colt supporters at the Democracy Defender level Higher. Submit your questions for our monthly bonus q and a show your questions shape our show. Subscribe today to get bonus shows. All shows ad free invites to exclusive events and more discounted annual memberships are available at patreon.com/gaslit.
(37:40):
It's all hands on deck. Gaslit Nation is phone banking and at Battleground states with Sister District every Wednesday in October at 6:00 PM Eastern and with Indivisible Thursday, October 17 at 7:00 PM Eastern and again on Election Eve RSVP at the Gaslit Nation Survival Guide on gaslit nation pod.com. Gaslit Nation is produced by Andrea Chalupa. Our production is Nicholas Torres and our associate producer is Carlin Daigle. If you like what we do, leave us a review on iTunes. It helps us reach more listeners and check out our Patreon. It keeps us going. Original music and Gaslit Nation is produced by David Whitehead, Martin Berg, Nick Farr, Damian Ariaga, and Carlin Daigle. Our logo design was donated to us by Hamish Smite of the New York based Firm order. Thank you so much. Hamish Gaslit Nation would like to thank our supporters at the producer level on Pat and hire. Ice Bear is defiant. Sidney Davies worked for Better Prep for Trouble. Lily Wachowski. John Schoenthal. Larry Gusan De Scott Ann Bertino, David East, Joseph Mara Jr. Sean Berg, Kristen Custer, Kevin Gannon, Sandra Colemans, Katie Maus, James D. Leonard. Leo Chalupa, Carol Goad, Marcus j Trent, Joe Darcy, and Marshall. Diehl. Sinfield. Nicole Spear Abby Road. Janz. Reff. Rasen. Mark. Mark, Sarah Gray, Diana Gallagher, Leah Campbell, Abby Zavos and Tanya Chalupa. Thank you to everyone who supports the show. We could not make Gaslit Nation without you.