Episode description
How is it that judges arbitrarily chosen by presidents who didn't even win the popular vote are appointed for life and can overturn our most cherished rights? What’s with the veneration of the US constitution, which was written by slave owners? Is America really a democracy?
To discuss this and more, Rania Khalek was joined by Aziz Rana, a professor of law at Cornell University and author of the book “The Two Faces of American Freedom.”
Follow Aziz’s work here: https://www.azizrana.com/
You can listen to all episodes of Rania Khalek Dispatches anywhere you get podcasts.
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3za9DRK
Apple: https://apple.co/3zeYpeW
TIME CODES
0:00 Intro
1:50 Judges for life
5:29 Why are Democrats so weak on this?
11:13 How can liberal and conservative justices be so chummy?
14:27 Supreme Court’s drift to the extreme right
18:49 Cult of personality around supreme court justices
22:12 Court’s achievements or people’s achievements?
27:01 Reducing the power of the Supreme Court
31:06 The myth of steady progress
35:42 Can we achieve through legislation what we fail to achieve to litigation?
40:43 The constitution as counter-revolutionary
46:23 History of constitution worship tied to imperialism
50:24 Liberalism vs the constitution: Contradictions
53:33 Have elections and democracy lost their meaning?
56:27 Is the US a democracy?
59:08 Foreign policy
1:02:57 Internal violence and mass shootings
1:07:00 Mass incarceration
1:12:12 America does NOT have universal suffrage
1:16:21 Radical constitutional transformation
1:21:48 Federal judiciary system, is it flawed?