Retire, Sonia [TEASER]

Look, you want to play blind man, go walk with the shepherd.

But me, my eyes are wide fucking open.

What the fuck does that mean?

It means that's it for me.

From here on in, you can consider my ass retired.

Jesus Christ.

Don't blaspheme.

God damn it.

That's it.

Don't do that.

Hey, everyone.

This is Leon from Prologue Projects.

On this episode of 5-4, Peter, Rhiannon, and Michael are once again calling for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to retire.

It's not a comment on Sotomayor's credentials or her talent.

It's about protecting a liberal seat on the court and not repeating the mistake that Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg made before her death in 2020.

Over the past month, calls for Sotomayor to retire have increased.

She's 69 years old.

Her health has been in the spotlight due to her lifelong diabetes, and they want her to retire this year so that President Biden and a Democratic Senate can replace her without the possibility of her leaving the court under a Republican.

But plenty of Democrats say she should keep her seat as long as she wants, even though it carries the risk of repeating the folly that replaced RBG with ACB.

This is 5-4, a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks.

Welcome to 5-4, where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have caused our nation to slowly become steadily less cool and relevant, like Coachella.

I'm Peter.

I'm here with Rhiannon.

Hi.

And Michael.

A nation and a music festival in decline.

That's right.

I don't care if celebrities still go.

I don't think it's that cool anymore.

When the talk of the town is Doja Cat.

I'm sorry.

I can't do it.

I can't do it.

Yeah, all the influencers coming up at Coachella right now on my social media.

Like, I'm just like, this is just like kind of sad.

Like, I don't know.

Like, Love Island, UK, season five person at Coachella.

Come on, come on, you know, I'm like, she's like my age, like, like, it just, your skirt looks stupid.

Like, you know, I have an old college friend who many, many years ago showed up at our buddy's house for Coachella.

And my buddy was like, what are you doing here?

And he's like, we're going to Coachella.

And he's like, yeah, it's in 10 days or whatever.

You're like, a week early.

What are you doing here?

And that is who Coachella is for.

People whose brains are still not developed enough to accurately accurately plan trips.

Once your brain is done developing, you should have the long-term planning skills to be like, I don't need to go to Coachella.

This is how you start a podcast that is targeted demographically for people in their mid to late 20s.

You start complaining about Coachella as a bunch of people either at or nearing 40.

That's what the kids want to hear.

That's just my 40-year-old opinions about

Coachella.

All right.

So today we are wading back in to the ongoing debate about Sonia Sotomayor retiring.

Yeah.

As you may know, but probably haven't fully processed, this is an election year.

Whether you like it or not, it is.

Yeah.

It keeps happening.

And if Joe Biden loses, and or the power balance in the Senate shifts, that means the Democrats would be much less likely to successfully confirm a nominee to the Supreme Court.

And because of that, there have been increasing calls for Justice Soda Mayor, the oldest liberal justice, to retire,

which would effectively guarantee that her successor is selected by a Democrat.

And this has spurred a bunch of debate about whether this is a good idea, whether it's too late, et cetera, et cetera.

We have weighed in on this before.

Yes.

In December 2022, we did a premium episode on Soda Mayor.

and at the end of it, we called for her to retire.

She is such like a clear and important voice on the court.

She would be sorely missed if she retired.

And yet.

And yet,

if she does not retire now,

we are therefore running a very legitimate risk that she dies when Democrats do not control the presidency and senate, which means a very legitimate risk that she is replaced by a conservative justice.

You heard it here.

Sonia Soto-Mayor, retire, ma'am.

Please, and thank you.

We like you very much, and we would like it if you retired.

Yeah.

And as usual, the public discourse has taken a year and a half to catch up with us.

Yeah, welcome.

Democrats are in all-out op-ed warfare on this issue right now.

And so we thought we'd weigh in again, talk about the political and media failures here, discuss the debate, and discuss why we think this is just an obvious question, right?

There's just not much debate to be had here.

Now,

we are going to address all of the arguments that have popped up that Sodomayor shouldn't retire, that she's not that old, that she's not replaceable, that we should focus on winning elections, that there's no difference.

Hey, folks, if you want to hear the rest of this episode, you're going to have to subscribe.

There are a few ways to subscribe to and support 54, get our premium episodes, and you can learn about them all at fivefourpod.com/slash support.

Subscribers get a whole bunch of benefits, including exclusive episodes, members-only events, first dibs on live show tickets, and access to our very lively Slack channel.

So, if that sounds good, head over to five fourpod all spelled out.com/slash support.

Thanks.