The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – American Crusade: How the Supreme Court Is Weaponizing Religious Freedom by Andrew L Seidel

Episode Date: October 31, 2022

American Crusade: How the Supreme Court Is Weaponizing Religious Freedom by Andrew L Seidel Is a fight against equality and for privilege a fight for religious supremacy? Andrew L. Seidel, a constitutional attorney and author of the critically acclaimed book The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American, dives into the debate on religious liberty, the modern attempt to weaponize religious freedom, and the Supreme Court's role in that “crusade.” Seidel examines some of the key Supreme Court cases of the last thirty years—including Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (a bakery that refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple), Trump v. Hawaii (the anti-Muslim travel ban case), American Legion v. American Humanist Association (related to a group maintaining a 40-foot Christian cross on government-owned land), and Tandon v. Newsom (a Santa Clara Bible group exempted from Covid health restrictions), as well as the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade—and how a hallowed legal protection, freedom of religion, has been turned into a tool to advance privilege and impose religion on others. This is a meticulously researched and deeply insightful account of our political landscape with a foreword provided by noted constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky, author of The Case Against the Supreme Court. The issue of church versus state is more relevant than ever in today’s political climate and with the conservative majority status of the current Supreme Court. This book is a standout on the shelf for fans of Michelle Alexander, Bob Woodward, and Christopher Hitchens. Readers looking for critiques of the rise of Christian nationalism, like Jesus and John Wayne, and examinations like How Democracies Die will devour Seidel's analysis.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Here's your host, Chris Voss. Wait, is that me? Hey, guys. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the Chris Vossoss show the chris voss show.com i always get that thing like it comes up and says here's your amazing host chris voss and i sit there just going

is who is it this time anyway guys we have an amazing author on the show and he's got a hot new book that's out we're going to be talking to him about about it in the supreme court or some people call it scotus that's a supreme court of the united states i believe this is what this stands for or for other people it's just a church anyway we'll get into what that's about and all that good stuff i don't know i'm just making stuff up that's what we do on the improv at the beginning of the show christian rambles about something that's what's one of my authors from france from i think we're all journal the new york times called it he goes you do a ramble every show.

Anyway, you guys know the ramble. Part of the ramble is to refer the show to your friends and family. Sit down with them and, you know, sit down with them and show them that in your will, you've given up all your estate to the Chris Voss show. And that they're not going to get anything from your estate unless they subscribe to the Chris Voss show. This is a horrible ramble I'm doing at the Improvving today. And if they ever want to receive any inheritance from you, they must subscribe to the Chris Voss Show. So tell them to go to youtube.com. Don't do that. Don't do that. Go to youtube.com where it says Chris Voss. Go to

goodreads.com where it says Chris Voss. Go see the big LinkedIn group, the LinkedIn newsletter, and all that stuff we do on LinkedIn. Go see us on TikTok. We're trying to get cool over there. Not sure it's working, but we're getting a few thousand views. You know, maybe we'll get cool. Maybe we won't. I don't know.

Oh, one thing I do want to make an announcement. I'm told that this morning we should have Gordon Sondland booked on the show. His new book coming out October 25th, the envoy mastering the art of diplomacy with trump and the world you remember gordon he was the ambassador to the union pn union who testified at the trump thing and he's written a book and it's going to be a tell-all so it'll be interesting to have him on the show as well but last but not least or first but not least because he's first on the show we have an amazing author on the show today he's the author of the newest book that just came out September 27th, 2022, American Crusade,

How the Supreme Court is Weaponizing Religious Freedom. I've thrown so much energy into being on the show. Andrew Seidel is on the show with us. Andrew, help me get that last name correct. Andrew Seidel, and thank you so much for having me on. It's a pleasure. Thank you for coming on. Andrew Seidel. And thank you so much for having me on. It's a pleasure. Thank you for coming on. Andrew Seidel is on the show with us today.

He's going to be talking to us about his amazing book. Sometimes I throw so much energy at the beginning of the show, the brain goes right out the window, which you guys have been here for 13 years. You've seen that movie. Anyway, he is on the show, and it's going to be amazing to talk to him and get some insights, especially what's coming up for the coming election. He is a constitutional and civil rights attorney, the author of two books, The Founding Myth, Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American,

and his newest one, American Crusade. He's also co-editor of an academic text, Law and Religion, Cases and Materials, fifth edition, professor leslie griffin of the unlv a las vegas law school he is a senior correspondent at religion dispatches a prolific author of op-eds and scholarly articles i'm learning to talk today evidently he organized and contributed the groundbreaking report christian nationalism at the january 6 2021 insurrection which is published by the baptist joint committee and ffrf which aroused congressional interest he's appeared on fox news debate bill all right i'm gonna go watch that msnbc and hundreds of other media outlets and he's the vp of strategic

communications americans united for the VP of Strategic Communications at Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, the largest organization fighting for a founding principle. Remind me to subscribe and donate. He has a BS in neuroscience and several law degrees, each with honors and awards. And before dedicating his life and law degree to keeping state and separate, he was a Grand Canyon tour guide and accomplished nature photographer. I don you know how you went from there to there you you need to explain how you decided to go from a tour guide nature photographer to being an attorney who

just sues the fuck out of everyone that was like my gap year it was your gap year yeah yeah that was your finding yourself right Yeah. There you go. Well, welcome to the show, Andrew. We really appreciate it. And tell us where people can find you on the interwebs, any dot coms or Twitter handles, whatever you want. I'm Andrew L. Seidel dot com. I'm Andrew L. Seidel on all of the socials.

And yeah, please join. Subscribe to Americans United for Separation of Church and State. AU.org. We need all the support we can get these days. I'm an atheist. I can probably get behind that, right? Oh, yeah. Really, the separation of state and church is for everybody. Yeah.

It's kind of an important thing. In fact, it's the only way to guarantee religious freedom. And regardless of what Boebert says, it's in the Constitution, actually. In the Founding Fathers. You know, I'm'm all even as an atheist i'm for people if you they if you want religion go through your life just keep it off my lawn man don't wave it in my face so what motivated you want to write this second book

on this topic well i've been watching the supreme court for a decade and i've been watching it perverts religious freedom because religious freedom has long been this shield right that this hallowed protection against an overreaching government the minority is protection against the tyranny of the majority and that's not true anymore and it's not true anymore because of this supreme court and because there is this this well-funded and powerful network of christian nationalist organizations and judges i mean we're talking're talking like a huge part of it, right? It has spent $500 million hacking our courts. And one of the things they're working to do is to weaponize the First Amendment.

And I mean that quite literally. They're trying to turn that protection of just freedom enjoyed by all into a weapon of supremacy and power and privilege for the chosen few. And I'm not one of them. Damn it. You're not one of them. Unless you are a conservative white Christian dude, you're not going to benefit from this crusade. Damn it. I need to join a new club. This atheist club isn't working out. There's no money in it. So give us an overview of the book. What goes into it? And just kind of a bird's eye view, if you would.

Yeah. So these crusaders are litigating the legal meaning of religious freedom as a constitutional right in case after case. And in the process, they're redefining that protection. And they bring cases that we are told and that superficially seem to be about a Christian cross or about the surface of a kid's playground or about school vouchers or a gay wedding cake or a coach that just wants to pray. But really, they're about supremacy and power. They're literally about privileging the right, air quotes, kind of conservative Christian over everybody else. And so I tell the story of this decades long campaign to forge this weapon in American crusade. And I genuinely do not think you can understand what is happening in this

country right now, from our politics to our culture, to our courts, to our law without understanding this attack. And go ahead. Hi, folks. Chris Voss here with a little station break. Hope you're enjoying the show so far.

We'll resume here in a second. I'd like to invite you to come to my coaching, speaking, and training courses website. You can also see our new podcast over there at chrisvossleadershipinstitute.com. Over there, you can find all the different stuff that we do for speaking engagements, if you'd like to hire me, training courses that we offer, and coaching for leadership, management, entrepreneurism, podcasting, corporate stuff. With over 35 years of experience in business and running companies as a CEO, I think I can offer a wonderful breadth of

information and knowledge to you or anyone that you want to invite me to for your company. Thanks for tuning in. We certainly appreciate you listening to the show. And be sure to check out chrisfossleadershipinstitute.com. Now back to the show. And this is why I love books like yours and authors like yourself that write these books, because a lot of people don't understand. They just think that one day, you know, SCOTUS got up and decided to overturn Roe versus Wade.

That's the age we're living in, if you're watching this 10 years from now. And we have an election coming up that's going to be a fight over the House and Senate. But, you know, people don't realize, like you mentioned, and we've talked about in the book, this is a decades-long thing. This is 40, 50, 60 years in the making of trying to do this. I thought it was interesting and probably appropriate that you used the words crusade and crusaders. What motivated you to use that language? I mean, it really is a religious crusade. I mean, they're not seeking to conquer land, but they are seeking to conquer our Constitution and remake it in their image. I mean, really what they are trying to do is fashion America as a Christian nation, that nation that it was not founded as, which that's the subject of my first book, but which they want it to be. And so, I mean, that phrase was chosen deliberately.

And, you know, in each, so I discuss one of the cases in each chapter of the book. And then I introduce you to the crusader groups that make up this network as we, as they litigate the other sides of these cases. Right. And usually the group was started by a white Christian man, often with early race yep yep early racist and you know homophobic leanings really oh yeah yeah you know sometimes they have early ties to james dobson people might know his name oh yeah anti-lgbtq white christian with early racist and eugenics leanings so that's weird how that all that's they're all the same that way i don't know what's going on there like coke brothers brothers, seed money is pretty typical. Cash infusions from the DeVos empire, also

typical. So, and really, I mean, the key for me was like, I have lived these cases. This fight has been my whole career, right? I've litigated some of them. I've briefed others. I have been on the front lines defending our country from this assault. And so American Crusade tells the true stories behind these Supreme Court cases, and it draws back the curtain on this assault and ties it all together. Because, you know, I think too often we treat these cases as just a one-off, not realizing that they fit into this much larger assault on our democracy. Yeah. And correct me if I'm wrong, most of these groups that you write of in the book and talk about, this has been their target, their bullseye for a long time,

is to stack the courts, to create enough, is tort law the right word? To create enough precedent in law to where they can stack enough of these different cases that they can set enough precedent to where we become a Christian nation. I mean, they just, they got really smart at this. They're like, we don't need to elect, you know, better HOA managers. We need to elect people in SCOTUS and stuff. And I love the word you used, crusade, you know. And so this is basically another Christian crusadeade by blunt force on scotus just

without all the murdering at least so far at least so far yeah i mean you know i think there's two important points to note on that first is that yes they did pack the courts and now these justices are completely allied with the crusade and you can see you can see and this is a this is a through line in in the book they are eager and ready to take these cases they want to hear these cases you know the supreme court typically rejects between like 97 and 99 of the cases that come its way but it decides almost every religious freedom case that comes its way and decide them in favor of conservative Christianity. And really, I mean, the ines lot of people is that these ultra conservative justices are crusaders too. And then that is why they were put on the court. So,

you know, you could, you've jokingly invoked the Federalist Society earlier. You know, I mean, Leonard Leo, who ran the Federalist Society is universally recognized as the guy who orchestrated the hostile takeover of the Supreme court.

And a former, I have a quote in the book from a former employee who described Leo's mission like this, quote, he figured out 20 years ago that conservatives had lost the culture war. Abortion, gay rights, contraception, conservatives didn't have a chance if public opinion prevailed. So they needed to stack the courts. And that's what they did. Yeah. to stack the courts and that's what that's that's what they did yeah people don't realize you know like basically for the most part i think the federalist society you know this better than i do so this is more of a question but i think the federalist society i mean they hand the president

from people like trump a portfolio of some of the most extremist you know conservative and like you mentioned crusaders, that they can put onto the court. And they've been doing this for decades. You know, you see the idiocy of the Florida judge who she was advised by, like everybody, including, I think, the body of attorneys to not have her put on as a federal bench. Yeah, totally unqualified. And you see how much the appellate courts have taken apart her ruling so far. Probably get worse. You know, you've seen the Clarence Thomas thing.

You know, he spoke of perverts on this SCOTUS thing. Clarence Thomas. Excuse me. Sorry, I had a cough there. And you see what's going on. I mean, just recently he's helping, you know give a pass to lindsey i'm gonna say lindsey graham is lindsey graham do i have the right lindsey i don't know what's going on today where he doesn't have to testify in that um in the in the you know the court case

there in georgia it's really it's really getting weird especially with him and his wife and january 6 and the crazy stuff she was putting out and you know she's trying to convince everybody they're like he has no idea what we're talking about. And it's like, you guys seem to rule the same way, though. You guys seem to be on the same side. So, you know, what's going on there? It's crazy. Yeah, so I get into a lot of that in the book.

And I already actually have an update available for free as everybody's bought the book on the website because we're learning more and more about the court and about the corruption at the court, especially as relates to jenny and clarence thomas i i will say the lindsey graham thing is just be too deep to get into the weeds but that one doesn't bother me as much yet i do think it looks terrible and i think that's a problem for the court but the whole court is likely going to weigh in on that one though that's not that's cold comfort too you know i mean no like think about think about what leo's former employee was confessing right the whole is they have an

anti-democratic mission right like if if if they didn't stack the court majority would rule if they didn't stack the court democracy would work right they had to figure out a way to enshrine minority rule and so le Leo's groups, the Federalist Society, Judicial Crisis Network, we know they spent $540 million packing the court from 2014 to 2020. And so that includes blocking Merrick Garland, getting Gorsuch on the court, getting Kavanaugh on the court over credible accusations, then jamming Amy Coney Barrett in at the last minute, right? And this summer, the news broke that Leo's newest group raised $1.6 billion. That's billion with a B. Those are the guys with the highest raised pack ever, right? Yeah, yeah. But look, that's also a billion dollars more than they spent capturing the court.

Holy cow. And the reason I think this is crucial is because Leo's job at the Federalist Society, you mentioned that he was providing portfolios of judges. That's correct. The short lists of judges that Trump announced, the names that he announced, those were written by Leo. And Leo's job was described for judicial nominees as the quote monitor of the nominee's ideological purity wow and we know he is responsible for the confirmation of roberts alito gorsuch kavanaugh and barrett all right that that's five votes justice thomas is an old friend of leo's there's actually a video from a recent federalist society event of them joking on stage about how leo's the third most powerful man in america right all six of the justices were or are members of the Federalist

Society. So that's six votes on the Supreme Court. And Leo personally chose five of them for their ideology. And it's a crusader ideology. That's why they were picked. Yeah. And you see, I mean, Trump, I mean, of all the times to get, I think, what was it, four judges he got? Was it three or four? Three. Three. And, you know, I think probably more judges than, I don't know what, Clinton? Yeah, three in four years is a remarkable run.

Yeah. To get that many judges thrown onto the thing, and of course, as highly embraced as he was in the Christian nationalism. You know, what people don't realize is when you study fascism or religious history, even when you look at Russia right now, Russia pulls this war off by going to the church, the Russian Orthodoxy, who's a billionaire, too. He's probably got some of his money parked over there from putin um and gets the blessing of the church and this is how fascism rises this is how authoritarian rises the few you know religion's been dying off in america for the past 10 20 years it took a huge dip with the gen z years and they they they're trying to do a clawback and they figure out the best way to do

is to stack the court take the court and you know now they're trying to do a clawback and they figure out the best way to do is to stack the court, take the court. And, you know, now they're trying to steal elections. So it's a death by a thousand cuts. Well, and you're absolutely right. This is one of the things that I really wanted to answer in American Crusade, too, because I wanted to answer why. Why the crusade? Why are Christian nationalists seeking this weapon? And you're right. I mean, it's largely a backlash

against equality realized and against changing demographics, right? So conservative white Christian American status as the dominant group is threatened, and it has been for some time. They're losing the culture wars, as Leo's former employee admitted. They're losing the deference which they believe their religion is due. And if you want a really great example of this, go listen to Justice Sambolito's gloating speech that he gave at a religious freedom forum in Rome in July, which was just after he overturned Roe versus Wade. It's all about how his religion is not being given the deference it's due. And we know, we know that when the dominant

group or caste in a society feels threatened or left behind by circumstances, that it reacts or overreacts by seeking a way to retain that status. And that is why we are seeing them turn to Christian nationalism and turn to violent insurrection to overthrow a free and fair election, turning to these so-called strong men. But it's also why we are seeing them weaponize religious freedom at the Supreme court. Yeah.

And it always ends in violence. It's violence. It's power seized by violence. You know, I mean, you can go back to every, every fascist authoritarian rule and, and then violence to stay in power, you know, and that's why we're seeing, you know, I mean, you can go back to every fascist authoritarian rule and then violence to stay in power. You know, and that's why we're seeing, you know, all this language.

I mean, people don't realize this, what's going on. But there's all this language that comes out from these right-wing politicians and even like news people on Fox. And, you know, there's talking about violence and seizing violence and, you know, this sort of Russian language that they use with the, where they go, those people are pedophiles, they're eating babies, they're killing babies. It gives them, oh, well, if they're killing babies, wouldn't we have a right to react by violence? And it's all a pattern of history if you study what's gone on in history with the rise of fascism and authoritarianism. It's all seated in this right-wing religion where usually, I think Ruth Van Gate wrote, we've had her on the show, she wrote the book Strongman.

It talked about how all of these leaders rise in profile, and they rise with religious white nationalism, taking back, seizing power again. It's a huge part of it. My first book, The Founding Myth, Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American, you know, I look at the previous waves of Christian nationalism that our country has endured. Because Trump, one of the best predictors, probably the best predictor of a Trump voter in 2016 was whether or not that person believed the United States was founded as a Christian nation. And that's basically the definition of Christian nationalism. That was the best indicator of a Trump voter in that election. And he successfully tapped into this undercurrent of Christian nationalism that had not risen to the surface, but which he then brought forth. But we'd seen previous waves throughout our history, and it was during times of fear and strife and violence. Like during the 1950s, the Red Scare.

I have a chapter on that in the Founding Myths, in the lead up to the Civil War. And during the Civil War itself, we saw a small wave rise up in 1863 and 1864. And that's when you get things like In God We Trust

added to our coinage for the first time. And then in the 1950s, you get all kinds of stuff like the National Day of Prayer, In God We Trust put on paper money, Under God added to the Pledge of Allegiance, all this stuff. What is really happening is what you're talking about, Christian nationalists taking advantage of these times of national fear and crisis to impose their religion on a country that is essentially otherwise preoccupied with surviving a crisis and we were talking earlier in the green room about greg lock and you know i i

watch this what's the channel that i subscribe to right right wing watch yeah right hard to say without screwing it up and and i watch the preachers that are on there and you know they're they're they're preaching about violence they're they're they're basically political rallies like i'm not i'm like do you guys ever talk about Jesus in that Bible thing? There was some stuff there you used to talk about, and they just look like political rallies now. And you're just like, you get tax-free benefits from this? Yeah. This is one of the things I discuss at the end of American Crusade is how Christian nationalism and right-wing politics are

wrapped up in this feedback loop where it's difficult to know now. It's chicken and egg thing. You don't know which came first, really. And, you know, a really good example. So, I mean, essentially, the religion drives the politics and the politics drives the religion is what I'm saying. But you can't necessarily tell where each begins. A good though of where you can see the the politics driving it was was during the pandemic right where you have all of a sudden all of these churches and religious groups challenging mask mandates and vaccines and it's not because there was some new scripture discovered which said don't get vaccinated or don't wear a mask jesus said that though you know i i don't remember that in the beatitudes it was it was revelations when the peace rises from the thing peace had a mask on no i'm just kidding but there's nothing new that

was discovered it was trump and the conservative politicians failed miserably in their response to the pandemic. And so they had to figure out there was this visceral response to it. Well, we can't let that happen. So you have the politics then driving religion. And then they're claiming, well, I'm made in God's image, so I can't wear a mask. Which, I mean, it makes no sense. You have Catholic schools in the United States challenging these mask mandates mandates and then the pope no it's it's really amazing so i get into some of that in the end of american crusade it's more of a sidebar but it's almost like everything is an

excuse to create precedent and law to just empower to strengthen codify religion as more and more of us being religion religion nation. It's just amazing to me how many people haven't read the Constitution. Like when Lauren Volber goes running around saying it's not in the Constitution or the Constitution says there should be no separation of religious and state. I remember one person I read recently, they made a comment on my thing saying what was it the the constitution isn't the real isn't the real glar code of the united states it's the bill of rights and you know they were they were going on about number two about guns and stuff and you're like

do you understand that the bill of rights can't stand without the constitution that like the amendments are founded upon the foundation of that thing. Have you read the Constitution lately? As a constitutional attorney, I can assure you that the amendments actually amend the Constitution. Do you understand what an amendment is? Wasn't there one of those crazies that also said it couldn't be amended or something? No, that's what amendments are for. Real quick on the Lauren Boebert part, because I actually, I've heard that argument so many times I got frustrated. Separation of church and state isn't even in the Constitution.

And if you want the best refutation of that, just Google it and then click on the link that's the au.org link. It's the separation of church and state in the Constitution. Google that and then click on the au.org link. And it's a very simple refutation bookmark it copy paste liberally it'll it shoots it all down yeah i started keeping a copy of it and i reread the constitution in 2020 before biden's election i was giving out copies for christmas you know little booklet copies the one thing i love about all the journals we have on the show is they keep a copy of them with them because they understand and honor what that document says. And of course, the freedom of

the press is a very important factor of it. But they hold politicians to their feet, their feet to the fire of calling them out and that right that they have to do so. And once we lose that right, once you can't speak out against religion or religious dominance, you know, and what's really interesting, I don't know if you talk about this in the book, but what's really interesting is this isn't religious freedom for all religions either that these people are up to. Like, they're not like tolerant of other religions. Like, mine's coming out the window, clearly. Atheist atheist i'll be burned at the stake first and put into the reconcentration camps for re-doctrinating myself oh i'll be i'll

be right alongside you there will you okay well we're screwed the and i don't think jewish people my good friends in the jewish community i don't think jewish judaism it seems like there's they have some toxic attitudes towards judaism i think just about anything that isn't white, right-wing, religious. I've had some authors that have suggested that Amy, or what's her face, the gal from Centers of National Policy, we mentioned her earlier, Betsy DeVos. Betsy DeVos's religion is very, what's the word of the guy that she's really subscribed to. And it's a very violent sort of person. Dominionist? Yeah, the Dominionist. And who was the guy who was behind that, the Bible guy?

You think? Calvinism? Oh, I mean, yeah, there is. Is it Calvinism? I thought you were going for Rush Dooney is where I thought you were going. Might be. I mean, that guy too, from what I understand. Yeah, it's a kind of, you know, violent sort of like we're taking our will.

It's not something where they're going to be like, okay, so all religions are good now and we're in control and the Bible is the new constitution. It's just going to be whatever their flavor of religion is. No, I mean, you're absolutely right about that. And it's one of the crucial through lines that I tried to bring out in the book because the ploy to capture the courts worked yeah and we've actually been able to crunch the numbers and and then the studies that i'm going to give you the data on don't actually count for the last two terms which were some of the biggest victories for the crusaders so the numbers are actually more dramatic now than what i'm going to say but you know before john roberts was put on the supreme court religion won about half the time at the court. And, you know, that's kind of about what you

would expect if you were going to guess, you know, how often does religion win in these cases? About half the time. But under Roberts, that win rate jumps to 81%. And it's not just a pro-religion shift. It is a pro-Christian shift. So in the early courts, mainstream Christianity won 44% of the time. And by the time you get to John Roberts, that nearly doubles to 85% of the time. I mean, it should be plainly stated, right? The Supreme Court has been politicized. It has been packed. It is an extreme Christian wing of the Republican Party and and the new guiding principle of this supreme court is not the constitution or the law but simply this christianity wins and he tries to play a game with the balance of the quarter or the pr aspect of the balance of the court doesn't he like he

does you know sometimes he's like i'll vote over here and i'll try and play like i'm the middle guy is that you know like the perception he's trying to sell'll vote over here and I'll try and play like I'm the middle guy. Is that, you know, like the perception he's trying to sell? Does that do I have that right? You do. So I think the way to understand what John Roberts is trying to do is he wants the exact same conservative change that all of the other ultra conservatives on the court want their their their end goals are exactly the same the difference is that roberts understands that to have those changes stick depends on the legitimacy of the court so what roberts wants is the slowly

boiled frog and all the other justices are just chomping at the bit. Because Roberts is like, exactly, exactly. But I mean, but Roberts himself is as much a crusader chosen for his ideology as any of the other ones. So, you know, when we have I've got him and I talk about this in the books, we have briefs where he's arguing that public schools can impose religion on children at graduation ceremonies and that Christian Bible clubs can use public schools to organize. And when he was in the Reagan White House, he supported a constitutional amendment that would allow public schools to impose Christian prayer on school children. And then there's this memo that he wrote, which he says, we still have an uphill battle to return prayer to schools. Wow. Right. We battle return prayer to schools. I mean, that, that is the language of a crusader. Yeah, it really is. It really is. And you've given me some new light onto him

because I've always, I've always been a little confused by him where I'm like, is he on? Which side is he on? It seems like he'll game the PR and perception a bit. And then, of course, he'll try and present the court as being. But it seems like almost Clarence Thomas and maybe some of the other guys have kind of. For a while there, he was like, oh, I keep everyone corralled and I keep everything legitimate. Everything's above board. It kind of seems like even Clarence Thomas, like, fuck it,

we're doing whatever we want. Screw this guy. We're going. And that's where we are now. That's because like he, as the chief justice, he had a little bit more power and was able to do a little bit of the pumping the brakes. But now that there are five votes for the conservative change,

we're going to check every item off the wish list. He can't stop them. Wow. So it's just a fight over the power of the train and he's kind of going like, we should just move slow and boil the fog slowly. And everyone's just like, nah, just throw that whole wrench, that thing. Now that we're dominant

on the thing. We have power and by God damn it, we're going to use it, right? I mean, they're drunk on that power right now. The only question is whether and this is maybe in the weeds for your listeners, but I think Roberts is very clearly leaning on Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett

very hard to try to come around to his way of thinking. So he may succeed in convincing one of them to do the slowly boiled frog thing, but otherwise, yeah, things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. you so do you do you see that coming up then if i mean at this point i mean when you look at the long game and this is why like i said i appreciate people reading books like yours and what authors like yourself do in shining a light to this people just think in the moment like you know and i deal with this on social media you see people screaming oh, oh, men are bad because SCOTUS overturned stuff. It's like, no, you don't understand. You

haven't been paying attention and voting for 40 years. And this is the result of that. And the fixing this or balancing the court with people that maybe are more liberal or illiberal, you know, is going to take time. And if Biden and the Democrats, I'm a moderate Democrat, full disclosure, if Biden doesn't take the Senate to where he can actually get judges put on to SCOTUS if there becomes availability, I don't even know what the potential is for availability. If he doesn't get the Senate, they're not going to be able to start to try and at least balance the court. One question I have for you, how do you feel about this whole argument of expanding the court? I guess when the court was first

established, it oversaw nine different districts. Now there's 13, I guess. What do you think about that? And do you have any argument on either side? Yeah. So, I mean, first, I think you're absolutely right that people should get over the instant gratification attempts to fix everything in our society, right? Like they played a long game, captured the highest court in the land. It took five decades. We're not going to overturn that in a couple of days. You know, we also need to, by the way, shatter the myth that the judicial system is going to fix it for us, that there's a silver bullet for our side. We have to organize and message in ways that build power. That's one of the things that American Crusade seeks to do.

I do get into concrete solutions in the end of the book. None of them are quick or easy. I do offer expanding the Supreme Court as a solution. So yes, I mean, the Supreme Court, first of all, has changed sides seven times in our history. That's by legislation, you know, so that's about every 34 years on average. And then it's changed size other times too. You know, Mitch McConnell changed the size of this court he dropped it from nine down to eight for an entire four term for 422 days that's all get it yeah when it suited his political ends he was perfectly fine with changing the size of the supreme court he had no problem and then he bumped it back up to nine when it was also suited his political ends and and to me like

this is the point the supreme court has already been packed yeah i bet that has already happened and they they they did that not because they just wanted their people in there who are going to make these decisions and do it right right they didn't they didn't spend that 540 million dollars they didn't cheat and steal and pack the courts to put their collaborators in place because they would administer justice even handedly they did it because they wouldn't administer justice even handedly these guys were crusaders as you said yeah they they know the outcomes they were in it so to me it's the question is like forget about the fact that like yes it's nice that there are 13 circuits like they they did this on purpose to reverse engineer these decisions and yeah they they stole these seats that cannot stand

the institute like i know there are a lot of the institutionalists out there who are like, oh, you're politicizing the court. It's already politicized. That's true. That's what they did. That's the whole point of what they were doing. Because there's some people that have said, you know, if you change the court, you're politicizing it or you're doing that to affect the legitimacy and and you you bring a good argument yeah and i i it's it's just it fails to recognize where we are at this point yeah and how we got here yeah so to me that is one of the the solutions and i it took me a while to

get around to that solution actually but i'm i'm fully on board now and again it's not just we should expand it because the court's overworked you You know, I mean, then Mitch McConnell turns around and says, oh, well, fine, we'll add four justices. Like we need to expand it to rebalance it and punish the people who tried to steal it for political ends so that that does not happen again. This is the way to depoliticize the court, to make it not a political football, right? And remember, our entire constitutional order is based on checks and balances. We have the three different branches of government, and if any one of them gets too out of control, too drunk on power, it is up to the other two branches, in this case Congress and the president,

to check the third branch. That is what needs to happen right now. The Supreme Court needs to get smacked around, politically speaking. Yeah, there's been a – I mean, there's a lot of cases, you cite cases in your book. There's a lot of cases that have made it so that politically they can, you know, Citizens United and all sorts of different cases where basically, you know, you can have an oligarchy that buys justices, that buys presidencies, that buys politicians. You know, it's really crazy what's going on.

And like you say, it takes time. And it's going to take us time to repair this. I mean, even if Biden wanted to expand or the Senate wanted to expand the court, that would have to be a law, wouldn't it? Wouldn't we have to pass a law? And then it would probably go to the Supreme Court to say if it was going to pass. Well, so, I mean, that's one of the reasons I think that it is more attractive solutions, actually, because like things like term limits and things like ethics rules, I think we should try those.

But those are definitely going to be the people who are going to decide whether or not those are constitutional or the same justices whose power we're trying to check. Yeah. Isn't that interesting? It's almost like they're becoming the president of the country. And then people don't realize it is a boiling of the frog where you're slowly seeing your rights dissolved. Whether it's privacy rights, First Amendment rights, now it's abortion and religion. You know what?

Next, we were just watching Dr. Oz on TV talk about how the only people who should be involved in the conversation of abortion should be your doctor, yourself, and local politicians. Yeah. Local politicians are crazy. I mean, set Lauren Boebert and some of the extremists aside, who's the other gal who's kind of off the wall there? Marjorie Taylor Greene. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Set a few of those aside.

You know, there's some people in the Senate that, regardless of what side you're on, they seem to have at least something going on. I don't know if you address in your book at all the age, too, of our politicians and the people that are on the court. It's almost, do you talk at all about maybe we need an age cap or term limits on the court well and so that's one of the that's one of the things why expanding i think is a preferable solution because the the constitution itself lays out how long justices get to serve and the words are shall hold their offices during good behavior and that's in the constitution so that's why we that's what that has been interpreted to mean, a lifetime appointment. Whereas the Constitution does not set the number of justices. It says that Congress gets to do that. So there's, you know, for instance, right now there's a bill up, the Judiciary Act,

H.R. 2584, I believe it is, which changes the number of justices. It just changes in eight associate justices to 12 associate justices. Like just changes the word eight toices to 12 associate justices. Wow. Like just changes the word eight to the word 12. That's it. And all you have to do is pass that law and then you've got it. And then you confirm the judges. Whereas trying to, and there are some really creative, I will say this, really creative

ways to try to get around the constitutional lifetime appointment. So for instance, the people would still be on the court, but they'd have senior status or they would rotate off of active duty, or there would be heavy incentives for them to retire, or you would just keep adding people to the court every couple of years so that each president gets, you know, X number of appointments. And that lessens the desire to capture any single appointment politically and also encourages retirement. I mean, there are creative ways to do it, but I think expansions is the easiest. And this is the way that fascists and authoritarians take rule, you know, whether it's Russia or Brazil or name any other country where there's been a rise. When you can get the court to rubber stamp whatever an authoritarian wants to do, they can seize power. You know, I mean, the court was one of the few things standing between

Nixon when he, you know, when he tried to cite that he was had control of his tapes and stuff. And thankfully for a lot of their rulings, they held up against a lot of what Trump was trying to do. But, you know, now where we've seen the court stacked, I mean, anything's up for whatever. I mean, they overturn Roe versus Wade as a precedent. Precedent, you know, what else is next, you know? going to satisfy the crusaders wow the end of row is just the beginning i mean they're coming for contraception they're coming for marriage equality they're coming they're coming for everything and you know the brown ruling of the school ruling oh a lot of this really does begin with brown versus board of education which i get into in the book but i think the key thing to do and this is one of the, if only one thing happens from this book, I'd be happy with it, is that we have to unshackle our minds from the myth of the Supreme

Court as a defender of the downtrodden, as this impartial arbiter of truth and justice. You know, you mentioned, you know, the court checking Nixon, like, and the court had some really good years in there, like the Warren court. It gave us Brown versus Board of Education. It gave us Gideon versus Wainwright, which lets you have a, or it says you have a right to an attorney if you're accused of a crime right but that that is the historical outlier for our supreme court that really the supreme court is a regressive conservative body i mean this is the court of plessy versus ferguson and separate is equal of Dred Scott and fugitive slave laws of trying to suff said, of abolishing abortion and reproductive freedom in the name of their narrow religious belief.

So we really do have to unshackle our minds from that myth, because that myth is one thing that gives this crusade a lot of power. And there are GOP people who said the quiet part out loud, overturning Brown. I can't remember who said it, but they mentioned that. I think I think someone even joked about overturning the miranda rights you know this is this is returning us to a christian white nationalist sort of nation i mean these people want these people want to drag us back to the 50s and into the era of the era of you know huge racism and what's the era i'm thinking of post post lLincoln and the era where they enacted all the laws, the Jim Crow laws.

There we go. That's what I'm trying to say. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, you know, and you're right. I mean, this court is so focused on originalism and history and tradition. And it is because of exactly what you just identified. This court is focused on history and tradition because it wants to drag us back to a time when conservative white Christian men ruled and everybody else was second class citizens.

Yeah. And one of the ways they're trying to do that is by weaponizing religious freedom. Great discussion so far. We've been going on for a while here, and it's a topic that deserves exposure. What do you think should happen to Justice Thomas? This guy's clearly compromised. I mean, I don't think he'd be any more compromised than Clarence Thomas at this point, especially with his wife's involvement with January 6th. I mean, just some of the crazy stuff you've seen in checks messages. What's the right word for this?

To impeach him? to to claw him back what way can congress call him back and should he be clawed back well i mean the only way right justices retain their post during good behavior the only way to get a justice off the supreme court is if they die they voluntarily retire or they are impeached. And look, think about the political capitals that the other side spent to put Gorsuch and Kavanaugh and Barrett on the court. Think about what they expended to get Kavanaugh on the court over these credible accusations. And don't forget Kavanaugh screaming that the Democrats

were going to pay for what they did to him. They spent everything they could to pack the courts. And then they protected, of all people, Trump when he was up for impeachment. The idea that they would not do incidentally more for the justices who they spent all this capital to give lifetime appointments to is ludicrous to me. I mean, so, you know, I think that the best the best solution is to immediately put in some binding ethics rules on the Supreme Court. Now, there's there is an open question on whether the court would accept those rules, whether the justices would. But it also ought to extend to their families. Yeah. That's a, that's a crucial part. Like John Roberts's wife is a legal recruit recruiter. She's this high powered legal recruiter. And like, of course that gives her an entree into all manner of law firms and things like that in Washington, DC society. Amy Coney Barrett's

husband is a lawyer in Indiana. And that law firm in Indiana just happened to open a branch in D.C. all of a sudden. And he's going to be helping run it. And we're not sure what he's going to be doing. And there needs to be not just transparency from the justices themselves, radical transparency, but also for the families and the other immediate people in their life who could benefit from them deciding these cases. And I mean, I think Ginny Thomas and Clarence Thomas and I do I do get into and it's even worse than I think people realize. immediate people in their life who could benefit from them deciding these cases and i mean i think jenny thomas and clarence thomas and i do i do get into and it's even worse than i think people realize or yeah and i get into that in both the book itself american crusade and the update so i i i think we're in a little bit of a crisis when it comes comes to to them definitely and even like

you mentioned the attorneys and some of the some of the incestuous things with the attorneys and the law firms. We had David Enrich on with his book, Servants of the Damned, talking about Jones Day and some of these other law firms that have been really helpful to the conservative right. You know, there's a saber rallying going on that we've talked about where there's the threat of violence and the talk of civil war. And, you know, I don't see an official civil war going on because Americans are a little too busy with their radial tires

and, you know, leave me with my Lazy Boy recliners and that whole pitch from Network, the movie from the 70s. But, you know, there's a point where we need to go yell out our window. I'm sick and tired of all. We're not taking it. But, you know, it's almost like this placating where where biden and democrats are going should we force the 13 people on the scotus or is that going to invoke violence there is a time on the train that we're on the violence and taking violence is going to happen we're already seeing assholes with guns hanging out of voting voting mail-in ballot boxes and i think it's a Arizona where we're seeing our men at the things.

We saw our men showing up at the 2020 hearing. There is a point where this breaks and somebody, enough militias and people, you know, we saw on January 6th, where violence, you know, I had, I can't remember the radio host who came on the show, Tom Hartman. He's been on about five or six times now, but he came on after January 6th and he says, you know what they call Januaryuary 6th and i go what and he goes a warm-up and i about fell off my chair at a rehearsal and so violence is going to come to us in spite of all the saber rallying that's going on well maybe we shouldn't mess with clarence thomas you know the time to do is now and time to vote is now yeah i couldn't i more. Yeah, and I have a bad feeling. It looks like we might take the Senate.

I don't know. The numbers are getting narrower. And people just don't get it, man. They're in this mood where everybody elects fascists because the trains run on time until they don't. And the corruption, the greed, and the graft just gets so overwhelming that eventually the trains don't run on time, and then everything goes to hell, and they try and moderate the economy. Then you end up with Venezuela, which is, you know, people see countries like that, and they go, well, you know, they just got a bad guy. No, they had a series of bad guys that slowly tweaked and twerked the system. So anyway, I'm glad your book is exposing this and light to it.

One of the other final things I wanted to get in here on the Amazon listing, it mentions one of my favorite orators and debaters, Christopher Hitchens. The book is a stand up for the shelf of fans of Michelle Alexander, Bob Woodward, and it also mentions our good friend, Kristen Dume, who wrote the book, Jesus and John Wayne. She's been on the show a couple of times. And do you ever hang out with sam our good friend sam perry i think it is sam yeah yeah yeah sam perry and andrew whitehead and a couple other folks who i've worked really closely with and i consider

friends helped me put together that report on christian nationalism and the role that it played in the january 6th insurrection which is you know when you started talking about violence like that's immediately where like i've watched so many hours of footage for that that report that we produced and i helped spearhead along with with sam yeah so sam perry's good friend you know we've been doing a he's doing a lot of the studying of christian nationalism exposing it and i'm doing a lot of the fighting it on the front lines so he and i chat on the regular that's awesome he's brilliant and you're brilliant too for coming and shining a light on this and i chat on the regular that's awesome he's brilliant and you're brilliant too for coming and shining a light on this and i'm just glad that there's a group of people that

are in the religious segment that are i don't think you're in the religious segment i think i'm an atheist like you're an atheist but i'm glad there's a lot of people inside that building to calling it out and going hey you know there's there's craziness going on. I think we've had Sam on twice. We've had the guy from PR. Robert Jones, PR. He's been on it. So I'm glad there's people in there going, hey, you know, let's take this back. But sometimes it almost feels like they're just,

what's her face from Wyoming who was on the January 6th committee. They're like the Liz Cheney's. And you're like, you decided to call the ball way too late. And now you're trying to call it back and it may have gotten loose. I mean, well, you know, I think when you're fighting fascism and authoritarianism, shared values matter more than shared beliefs. And that is, I think, one of the things that we really have to focus on when we face an existential threat like white Christian

nationalism, which really is what we are facing right now. And, you know, I mean, it is that the entire goal of that movement is to give power and privilege to conservative white christians and make everybody else a second class citizen and you know our country really is on fire our democracy isn't slipping away it's being stolen the republic is being strangled and and those of us who share values like equality and justice and truth and fairness must come together to stop the arsonist, the thief, the pervert. And that means fighting Christian nationalism. So, you know, I really do value those friendships that have come out of that.

And people need to realize that when you vote, when you guys go to vote, you need to understand how important this is. I'm reading a lot of voters' attitudes where they're like, well, I'm more concerned about inflation. You know, like I said, the train's running on time. And my pocketbook, well, maybe you should be more worried about your freedom first because your freedom affects your pocketbook in the end when the trains don't run on time. And even if you're not, you know, inflation is not being caused by economic policies, but by corporate greed. And the only party that's taken that on are are not the republicans

yeah i mean i i like to tell people that that voting is literally the least you can do you know voting does not solve anything it is not a magic bullet it gives us an opportunity to fix things so you know it's not magic it's medicine you have to do it i've always liked that yeah i mean and and and you know for me people ask what political side i'm on these days i'm i've moved from a magic. It's medicine. You have to do it. I've always liked that. Yeah. I mean, and, and, and, you know, for me, people ask what political side I'm on these days. I'm I've moved from a liberal, you know, I, I, I was a George Bush guy, Republican back before 2000, before nine 11, you know, I, I saw what he did and the religious effect that he had, the religion that the religious right had with him. And I left the, I and i left the i left the party i was a

party because i thought he was an idiot and i was tired of dick cheney running this country can you imagine what i saw is as trump i'm like i i tell my republican friends i'm like i left because george bush jr was an idiot or i thought he was an he looks actually pretty smart now um you know trump was the best thing that ever happened to him yeah kind of he's him and nixon like nixon's like hey at least nixon respected our constitution and resigned you know he didn't even have to get impeached there was just the the threat of it but no it's it's crazy what's going on and people need to realize you know i see this all the time on facebook and and tiktok and other places especially after the row overturning, a lot of people with their hair on fire. And I'll put in the comments, I'll put like, hey, this is a great post of

hating on men or blaming whoever you're blaming for this, but are you registered to vote this coming election? And it's always crickets. Or it's like, no, it doesn't matter, you know, something like that. And it's like, hey, you know, you can make all the Facebook posts you want. But if you're not registering to vote, if you don't, I showed up and voted for Hillary. Okay, I didn't put us in this. Okay, everybody out there knows and was like, open our emails and stuff. You're just like, hey, you got us here. You're the person who got us here.

So there's that. Well, anyway, can I just say, too, because as a constitutional attorney, I've spent a lot of time looking at voting rights and watching the Supreme Court also dismiss. You could write a book like American Crusade about voting rights, and it's been written. The other side is spending so much goddamn time trying to take away your right to vote.

If you let apathy do that for them, I mean, you're just giving the game away. Yeah. And we've given it away. That's how we got here. So you need to fight. You need to fight. You know, we saw what happened in 2020. I mean, the game they were playing, even the day guy, what's his name, who was running the United U.S. Postal Service, the federal judges have finally ruled against him and put some constraints on him. Why he's still in that position, I have no idea. But, you know, everything they did, I mean, between Kemp kind of sliding the Georgia governor's election with the games he played with the voting booths and stuff, you know, it was crazy. Do you remember that Paul Weyrich quote?

No, no, I don't. So, you know, I mean, for people who don't know, Paul Weyrich quote? No, no, I don't. So, you know, I mean, for people who don't know, Paul Weyrich was, he gave the moral majority its name. You know, he founded it with Jerry Falwell. They chose abortion as the wedge issue for American politics. He founded ALEC. He founded the Heritage Foundation. And he gave this speech in, I think it was 1980, to this huge gathering of preachers. You know, Phyllis Schlafly was there, Tim LaHaye, Pat Robertson, Jerry Fallow, and Ronald Reagan.

And Weyrich says, I don't want everyone to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in elections quite tangibly goes up as the voting population goes down. And the hour in that infamous quote was Christians. Wow. And I mean, that's what they did during the Jim Crow era. They didn't want everybody voting.

We didn't really become a democracy until black people got the right to vote. And, you know, up until then, we were pretty much, you know, I mean, even the Constitution was written for landholders and men. So they kind of threw something in there like, you know, we should probably have equal rights for everybody, but we'll run with this for now. But no, it's people need to realize their rights are dissolving under SCOTUS. And this thing doesn't, and it's not enough just to be like, oh, those guys suck and making posts on Facebook. Anyway, thank you very much for coming on the show, Andrew. We really appreciate it. Give us your plugs at.com so people can find

you on the interwebs. Yeah, it was my pleasure. I could have gone for another hour with you. I know. We could go for an hour. So yeah, I'm Andrew L. Seidel everywhere. That's A-N-D-R-E-W-L-S-E-I-D-E-L. That's my handle on all the socials. That's my.com. I work for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, au.org. And I'll say this, if you want a signed copy of American Crusade, which I think makes a fantastic gift, especially for the liberal in your life or even the conservative who wants to learn something, if you go to bit.ly slash signed AC, S-I-G-N-E-D-A-C, like signed American Crusade, You can get a copy. I partnered with a local bookstore here in Madison, Wisconsin.

And every week I go in and sign a bunch of books and I can personalize it too if you leave a note during the checkout. So it's a great, great way to give somebody a gift for the upcoming holidays. There you go. And the upcoming election too. Pass the book, pass on the data, share, you know, give the book to a bunch of friends. People need to realize, you know, what's really going on in the long game. And even like you talked about earlier, it's going to take longer to fix this thing. Oh, yeah.

You know, is there anybody up in the next two years of Biden's presidency? If we won the Senate that we could. Is there any availabilities coming up? Not that we know of, but unless we can expand the court, which I think we desperately need to do. That's the surest way to stop the bleeding. But again, it takes a Senate majority and a House majority to do that. Does it take the House too? Oh, yeah, because it would be a law. But even SCOTUS appointments can just be done in the Senate, correct so once you get once you pass the law then the appointments are just

senate and i keep telling it to people i'm like we have to have a majority in the senate or else you're not going to get new justices so you're going to be stuck with what you got there you're not going to get new judges period right i mean like we talk about the supreme court but like mcconnell didn't just block obama's of Merrick Garland, but every other federal judge. I think I think Obama got one federal judge through in the last two years of his term. And then all of those justices were filled or all of those judgeships were filled by Trump, which is why like between a quarter and a third of the federal judiciary are Trump judges. Yeah, there's a there's a post there's a picture I keep posting. It's of Chris Farley doing his SNL bit of down by the river, the motivational speaker guy where he screams at the kids, you know,

and there's a picture of him Photoshop next to Merrick Garland, like arrest somebody already. And, you know, it's really important that he upholds the law of the land, that no one is above the law. Yeah, let's charge a president or an ex-president, I should say, or somebody who thinks he's president. Maybe that's the joke. But no, man. I mean, it's going to be interesting.

You know, it's always the smoking gun. It's the lie that catches you. And something as stupid as him keeping classified documents in Florida. Yeah, yeah. Because that's the one thing to get. I don't care what gets him. you and something as stupid as him keeping classified documents and yeah yeah because that's the one thing to get i don't care what gets him you know it's the same thing with oj and you know he gets away with murder but then some bullshit he pulls in my city of las vegas sends him away for 10 years i don't care what gets you but hopefully something goes down with that but yeah i don't i don't think the i don't think the the i think even just offsetting SCOTUS for 13 people is going to cause problems,

and the religious right is going to go more crazy. But more and more, using books like yours, we need to identify who the problem is in the room and go, it's those guys over there. Because I get tired of the Roe versus Wade thing where we're going, men are bad. Men are stupid. I'm like, you don't understand. All those men legislatures got conservative wives, like Clarence Thomas' wife.

And, you know, if people pick up the book and read it and come away thinking, like, we definitely need to expand the Supreme Court, like, that's the solution. I'd be thrilled. I don't copy the Biden. Yeah. There you go. You've got me sold on it. I was kind of on the fence, like, I don't. There you go. You've got me sold on it.

I was kind of on the fence like, I don't know, man. But you've got me sold on it now, so you converted me. Great. Anyway, thanks for coming on, Andrew. We really appreciate it. My pleasure. Thank you. There you go.

Guys, go pick up the book. Give it to your friends, family, and relatives. Get people registered to vote. If you really want to change what the Supreme Court's doing, you need to realize it realize the long game and all that good stuff. Available September 27th 2022, for those of you watching this 10 years from now. American

Crusade. Hopefully it's a democracy by then or that or else you'll be in that final scene of Planet of the Apes where Charles Ness comes up on and says, damn it, you idiot. American Crusade. How the Supreme Court is weaponizing religious freedom. Order up wherever fine books are sold.

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