The Federalist Society, part 4: How to Fight Back [TEASER]

I don't lose!

I win!

I win!

I'm a lawyer!

That's my job!

That's what I do!

Hey everyone, this is Peter, one of the hosts of 5-4, filling in for Leon.

Leon is sick.

Usually that means that Rachel Ward or Andrew Parsons would be reading this introduction, but both of them claim that they don't have microphones, despite the fact that last I checked, they were in the podcast production business.

Interesting, but I digress.

This episode of 5-4 is the final installment of our Federalist Society series.

Today, me, Rhiannon, and Michael are talking about how to destroy the Federalist Society.

While there have been attempts on the left to copy FedSOC's on-campus strategy, no one has succeeded in matching the part of its network that really matters, its influence and reach into the judiciary.

But, as you will hear, there are some promising signs that the left is learning how to counter the Federalist Society, not by copying them, but by drawing on its own strengths.

This is 5-4, a podcast about how much the Supreme Court and the Federalist Society suck.

Welcome to 5-4, where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have retracted our civil liberties, like scientific journals retracting anti-Mifipristone studies.

That's right.

I'm Peter.

I'm here with Rhiannon.

Hey.

And Michael.

Hey, everybody.

Michael, you shared this story with us, so I'll let you explain.

Yeah, the scientific journals retracted all these anti-Mifipristone studies because their stated reason was, well, the lead author on the study and all the authors on these articles in our journals all claim they had no conflicts of interest, but it turns out they're all heavily involved in the anti-abortion movement.

So they do.

And also, there's some serious methodological concerns on top of the conflict of interest concerns.

Yeah.

And of course, importantly for the law, those now methodologically suspect articles are being cited, for example, in Matthew Kazmerich's cases where he's ruling against FDA approval of Miffopristone.

Right.

So.

Well, now those cases don't count.

Yeah, that's right.

Because his citations are invalid.

That's how the law works.

So we have done three episodes walking through everything we think a normal human being needs to know about the Federalist Society.

And now it's time to talk about how to fight back, how to undermine the Federalist Society, how to build a competing framework on the left.

We went heavy into the research for our earlier episodes, did a bunch of interviews, but this one I think calls for a brainstorming session of sorts, right?

What can three of the nation's greatest legal minds come up with

in terms of a strategy for fighting against the federalist society?

Yeah.

And we are going to assume you've listened to the first three episodes of this series.

So if you haven't listened yet, you should.

Yeah, yeah.

You will get more out of this if you have listened to the first three episodes.

Yeah.

I think we can start off with like, how do you undermine the Federalist Society, right?

How do you sort of attack the Federalist Society itself?

And a big part of this conversation takes place on campus.

It's about what students can do, what professors can do, what law schools can do.

It's also about what, you know, politicians can do, what the media can do.

And so if you're in any of those groups listening to this, focus up.

All right.

We're talking now.

This is for you.

Yeah.

It's time to zone in.

But seriously, I think the federalist society has sort of been running functionally unopposed for 40 years.

And if there's real hope of undermining them and then ultimately building something else on the left, It requires sort of comprehensive input from every element of legal culture and legal institutions and political institutions, right?

Everywhere from Congress down to the individual law student.

And we can start with law school professors who are sort of useful leverage for the Federalist Society and sort of serve as a vector of attack on campus.

Michael, I feel like you have thoughts

about like what professors should and should not be doing relative to the Federal Society on campus that you've talked about before.

Yes.

I have lots of thoughts.

So we're going to start

with law schools because this is such an important part of the way the Federal Society operates.

And it's where they recruit their next generation of little freaks.

And, you know, this is where they started.

This is a big source of their strength.

And if we want to beat them, we need to drive them from our campuses.

Now, professors, there are a lot of things they should and should not be doing in regards to the federal society, but one of the big ones is if you are a liberal professor, you should not be sitting on their panels.

You should not be attending their events.

You should not be giving helpful comments

to federal society members on their draft articles for law reviews.

You should not be helping them get published.

And you should not be voting for them to get tenure if you're on the hiring committee.

And going through all these, the panels are literally one of the biggest things the federal society uses to pitch itself to students.

They say, we get elite speakers from both sides of the aisle.

So this is an organization whose purpose and whose main function in society is to advance.

a right-wing policy agenda in the judiciary.

And their opening gambit with that is holding these debates to recruit students into their organization for grooming and to give their radicalism the cover of this seemingly bona fide organization.

So when you go to those events, you are doing that work for them.

When you headline a panel, you are one, giving credence to their claim that they get top-level speakers from both sides of the aisle.

And two,

helping create the appearance of a bona fide organization interested in debate.

All right.

If you want to put on a fucking debate, you don't.

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Thanks.