Episode 336: How To Stay Politically Engaged Without Going Crazy with Leah Litman

Full Episodes
Written By Forever 35 Podcast

Doree and Elise speak with University of Michigan Law School Professor and Strict Scrutiny podcaster Leah Litman about the incoming Trump Administration. She discusses how you don’t have to accept the inevitable, how you can politically “gum up the works” of government as a form of resistance, the top three things to look out for as the Trump Administration takes over, and a solution to being involved when you only want to curl up in the fetal position.

Photo Credit: University of Michigan

Transcript

 

The transcript for this episode Ai generated.

Doree (00:10):

Hello and welcome to Forever 35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Doree Shafrir.

Elise (00:18):

And I'm Elise Hu. And we are two friends who like to talk a lot about serums, and I'm glad we have this show to talk about taking care of ourselves and one another. This year has already been a hell of a year, and we're only a few weeks in.

Doree (00:33):

Yeah, I know. I know. It's kind of nuts. Cool.

Elise (00:36):

Boy.

Doree (00:39):

Oh boy. I saw something that Dr. Puja Lakshmin posted.

Elise (00:50):

She's the author of Real Self-Care,

Doree (00:52):

Right? It's

Elise (00:52):

Like Beyond Crystals and Bubble Baths. I

Doree (00:56):

Remember the, yeah, she was on the show, I think maybe right before you started. Anyway, she posted something on Instagram that said, if your self-care requires constant willpower, then it's foe.

Elise (01:11):

Oh.

Doree (01:12):

And I just really liked that she said in the caption, gritting your teeth only goes so far. In my experience, shame is not a helpful motivator when it comes to long-term change. If you have to force yourself every time, then you might be engaging in faux self-care, not real. That's how

Elise (01:31):

I feel about bar classes.

Doree (01:33):

Yeah. If it's not bringing you joy, why are you doing it? Life is just sort of hard enough, especially now that I just kind of feel like if your self-care is hard or brings you stress, then

Elise (01:58):

Maybe it's work. Yeah. Maybe it's labor and not care.

Doree (02:01):

Yeah, exactly. So I don't know. That just really spoke to me today of all days.

Elise (02:13):

We are recording on a Thursday and Thursdays are the day I meet with my Jungian analyst, my therapist, Jonathan, shout out to Jonathan. And I was talking to him about how I feel like I have kind of a loose relationship with stuff, with things because I've been burglarized twice and after every burglary I'm just helpless. And my reaction is sort of like, well, there goes all my stuff. And then I have moved every three to four years until this stint in la I have moved every three to four years starting from when I was 13. And so every time you move, you lose things. And so I have over the years developed idea of things being ephemeral, but then this conversation has really come up because it's sort of like, what would you take with you if your house was burning down? And I was thinking to myself, I was like, what would I take besides the creatures, besides the animals?

(03:17):

And one thing is I would make sure that my daughters all brought their ies because they're little stuffed animals that they have clung to since they were babies for comfort. My oldest has a bear, my middle daughter has a dog. These are dog stuffies, they're ies, and then the youngest has a bunny. And they're so loved, these levies, the stuffings falling out and the noses are off. And my daughter's bear the oldest, the 12-year-old, the ear is all tattered and hardened because she rubbed on the ear as a soothing mechanism since she was a little baby. And so those are the things, they have such sentimental value attached to them. These are lovie who have been loved too much such that they're so destroyed. But besides that, I'm like, what is my lovey? What are those things for me? And they tend to be living things.

Doree (04:13):

Yeah. I mean it's interesting. So two things. One is that I've been seeing so many posts from people whose kids lost their lovies

(04:25):

In the fire and looking to replace them. And they're often these very specific IES that are no longer made and they don't remember where they got them. And they have these pictures. It's so heartbreaking. I did see that there is some company or organization that is trying to find new levies that match their old levies for these kids. But yeah, it's just devastating. So that's one thing. The other thing is, Matt and I had this exact conversation because the night of the Sunset Fire, which was the fire in the Hollywood Hills, we, I've mentioned this already on the show, but we didn't really think we would have to evacuate because we were about a mile and a half from the edge of the evacuation zone. And our area is pretty urban, but you never know. So we were sort of packing things up and just what you decide to take in a suitcase or what you can kind of shove into a car is very interesting. For sure, for sure. And we were both sort of like, huh, maybe we do we really need all of this other stuff? No. After the fact, I did sort of look around and was like, oh, I probably should have packed X, Y, Z. But in the moment when we thought we might have 30 minutes to pack up, it is sort of interesting to see what gets grabbed. I'm since working on evacuation lists for each of

Elise (06:11):

Us, a checklist.

Doree (06:13):

A checklist. And this was something I saw on Reddit. Someone posted that when they were growing up, their parents were like, I dunno if they were first responders, or somehow their parents were very sort of up on emergency management. And each person in the house had a list of what they would take. And I also have this list of, it's like, if you have 15 minutes to evacuate, here's what you take. If you have 30 minutes to evacuate, here's what you take. If you have an hour, if you have two hours,

Elise (06:47):

Oh, will you share that with me? I actually, I was thinking, I need to have, if not a go, I need to have a list of what I need to grab.

Doree (06:55):

And so I think this is helpful because it is like if you only have 15 minutes, here is what you absolutely need to take. But if you have two hours, you have a little bit more time to kind of gather a few more things. But yeah, I did start to make a list because Henry, he has stuffies, but he's not really a stuffy kid. He doesn't sleep with one. He's not that into, but if we didn't have his clock, that would be

Elise (07:25):

Oh yeah, he packs his clock on in his suitcase when you all go to Boston. I remember that.

Doree (07:30):

Yeah. So there's things like that where it's like, well, we better remember to take his clock.

Elise (07:35):

That's his lovey. Yeah, his clock is essentially his lovey because it brings comfort. Better

Doree (07:40):

Consistency. Yeah, exactly. We better remember to take his rainbow towel. You know what I mean? There's things like that that I'm like, okay, I need to remember to take these things. We better take his Yoda and his charger. Those are the things it's simultaneously overwhelming to think about and you hope you never have to do it. And that people did have to do it. And also it was sort of calming for me because it feels like, oh, I have a plan now.

Elise (08:15):

I was talking to this producer who, one of the disasters that we have actually been waiting for in Los Angeles in a way that maybe we did not prepare for an urban fire, isn't the earthquake like the big

Doree (08:28):

One?

Elise (08:29):

And there's a producer and reporter here in Los Angeles who did a podcast series called the Big One and went through a bunch of different ways that we needed to be prepared for it and the likelihood it could happen and what the actual hours after the big earthquake that happened would look and feel like. And I remember from that podcast series, he talked about how you should tie your shoes, tie a pair of shoes

(08:59):

To a bedpost, because if it really is the big one, your belongings go flying everywhere. And you may not be able to find a pair of shoes in all of the rubble, but if you've attached it to furniture, you might have the pair of shoes that you need to get out with. So there's someone I know who has ever since that podcast has been sleeping with shoes tied to her bed. It's also kind of the reality of living in a place with so many climate shocks or in a world where climate shocks are becoming inevitable and part of being human to try and plan and prepare.

Doree (09:36):

Totally. Boy, I think I also, as someone who didn't grow up in la, I didn't experience the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and I don't think I have, I still don't think I have fully the enormity of what happened during that earthquake. And that wasn't the big one, but it was pretty big. Huge one. The 10 collapsed ugly. So I was just reading someone, someone had asked, again on Reddit, which is the only social media I really read right now. They weren't trying to ask what a direct comparison was, but they were like, how does the Northridge earthquake compare to what is happening now? And people said, look, if you're in the Palisades or Altadena, what happened with the fires is obviously worse. But what happened with Northridge is that it affected the whole city. And because it was 1994, we didn't have the communication or the technological capabilities that we have now. People were cut off. There was no power in the whole city for five days. The freeway was broken. There's a scale of that disaster that I've sort of been like, oh, okay. Oh yeah, that can happen. And worse, it is a sobering reminder about where we live, I guess.

Elise (11:09):

And speaking of sobering reminders, it is not lost on us that this episode is dropping on Inauguration Day in the US the beginning of a new term. And so we did plan some programming or invited a guest that would be appropriate and give us some context to this moment that we're in.

Doree (11:28):

It's dropping on MLK day and feels, I don't know, it feels weird to me that MLK day is inauguration day when we are inaugurating a president who we're inaugurating. That feels icky to me. But at the same time, all we can do is try to counter what's about to happen. And I think actually our guest spoke very eloquently about, and she is just so brilliant and funny and yeah, I really enjoyed our conversation with her. Before we introduce her though, let's just remind everyone that our website forever 35 podcast.com has links to everything we mention here on the show. We're also on Instagram at Forever 35 podcast on our Patreon, which is at patreon.com/forever three five. We publish weekly casual chats. We publish our Forever 35 questionnaire, which is some fun bonus content with our guests. Fun. That's always

Elise (12:34):

Surprising, surprising and joyful.

Doree (12:36):

Yeah, it's always so funny because we've just spent, we do it after our interviews, so we've just spent 30 to 60 minutes talking to this person and then we ask them these questions and we learn about this whole sort of other side to them. So I always really enjoy those. And our favorite products are at Shop my us slash Trevor three five. If we do have a newsletter at Forever 35 podcast.com/newsletter. And please call or text us at (781) 591-0390. We love getting your emails, your texts, our emails Forever 35 podcast at gmail com. And those get read on our mini apps if you have questions for us, if you need advice, if you have feedback, if you just saw something, if you want to share

Elise (13:23):

Recommendations.

Doree (13:24):

Yeah, if you want to share recommendations, just reach out to us. We do appreciate it. Alright, Elise, do you want to introduce Leah to our listeners?

Elise (13:35):

Sure. I'm delighted to introduce our guest today, Leah Litman, who is a professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School. She teaches and writes on constitutional law, federal courts and federal post-conviction review. Her research examines unidentified and implicit values that are used to structure the legal system, the federal courts and the legal profession. You've probably seen her writing because it has appeared everywhere, not just law reviews, but also the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times. She's also one of the co-hosts and co-creators of strict scrutiny, a Crooked media podcast about the US Supreme Court, which is a podcast Academy award winner, an ambi award winner and an Anthem Award winner for its coverage of the Supreme Court overruling Roe v. Wade. She's also a co-creator together with Emily Vogel of women, also No Law, a tool to promote the work of women and non-binary academics. She has so much to say about this incoming administration, this reality that we are now entering or have been inside of and what we can do to respond to it.

Doree (14:48):

I also just want to shout out my sister, Karen Vladek for introducing me to Leah and facilitating this conversation happening. So thank you, Karen. I appreciate you and we are going to take a short break and we'll be right back. Leah, welcome to Forever 35. We are so excited to be talking to you today. Thanks for having me. Is there anything that you do regularly, semi-regularly, occasionally that you would consider self-care?

Leah Litman (15:27):

A few different things. So last two years, I would describe my self-care regime as attending eras, tour concerts, and then pulling up TikTok to see what surprise songs she played the night before. So unfortunately that's no longer available to me, but other self-care routines include regularly slash always trying to get at least eight hours of sleep. Second is swimming. I absolutely love to swim and that's kind of my decompression and de-stressor.

Elise (16:03):

What are your tips for sleep hygiene? That's actually one of my intentions. Well, it was one of my recent intentions.

Leah Litman (16:10):

Basically I'm just a huge bitch at parties and in scheduling events and I refuse to schedule dinners after five 30 or 6:00 PM because I just tell people, no, that's not a normal hour and we'll interfere with my sleep and then I leave parties. And that's basically the primary driver of my eight hours of sleep is insisting that everyone else inhabit my early to bed, early to rise schedule

Doree (16:37):

A boundary queen. We love this. That's amazing. I mean, I also like to eat early, so I respect this. I will eat, I would love to eat. It's just better for sleeping. Yes, it a hundred percent is. Elise is a party animal, so she is like, I don't get it.

Elise (16:57):

I like to do first dinner and second dinner and then go out, but then my sleep hygiene can be quite rocky. Well,

Leah Litman (17:05):

But it might be that's your self-care and that for you, the extra socializing slash dinner number one and dinner number two, that makes you feel better than for going those things. And that's

Elise (17:20):

A good point. That's a good point. Well, Leah, we are having you on inauguration day 2025 during a time of real transition for the US and a time of fear for a lot of women and marginalized communities. And so that's one of the reasons we wanted to have you on because you might be able to put it into context for us. So can you give us some context for this moment that we're in and what we should be watching for?

Leah Litman (17:48):

It's a little bit difficult to contextualize this because we haven't really had an election denier and someone who attempted to engage in insurrection be returned to the White House. There's just no getting around the fact that this is different in American history. Of course, we can look back on times when the country has been very divided, very polarized, and there were extreme factions within the United States, and we can look at those parallels and see what it took to get through those periods and the costs of doing so. But there is an important sense in which we are entering into a new era. And that's just kind of the reality. And we can see some parallels here and there either with the first Trump administration or with previous periods in American history. But in some ways it seems almost foolish to say, well, this is just like this other time and here's what happened.

Doree (19:04):

Sorry. No, I mean that's very real. I guess follow up to that, as I think some of us are still sort of wrapping our heads around what happened and what's to come, you have said publicly that there are things we can do besides assign blame for the election outcome, that there are ways to be more useful. And I guess I'd love for you to address what some of those are.

Leah Litman (19:42):

Yeah, so a few things come to mind. One is I think recognizing that politics isn't inevitable and that can be empowering on both a national scale but also state and local scales. So if you want to focus your energy on, I want to invest in something in order to see change, state and local politics oftentimes can change a lot more quickly than politics at the federal level. If you look at, for example, the change in compositions of some state supreme courts or state legislators, those happened over shorter periods of time. So one solution is to invest energies into trying to make state and local politics better reflect what you want national politics to look like.

Elise (20:32):

We totally didn't set you up for that, but we continue to be running a fund for or a giving circle for the state's project, which is a nonprofit that is dedicated specifically to state legislative races. And so you can go to our website forever 35 podcast.com to give there, but I'm so glad that you brought that up.

Leah Litman (20:54):

So I was going to say politics at the national level also isn't inevitable. And what I mean by that is Donald Trump is coming into office saying, here are all of the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad, frankly, monstrous things I plan on doing. And we shouldn't accept that all of those things are inevitable and you can resist, for lack of a better word, in different ways, you can talk to people about how some of what he is doing is just flatly illegal. You can call representatives to convey your views that what he is doing is illegal or just intolerable. And so some of these things might have the effect of getting them to stand down on one thing or another. You look back to, for example, the first Trump administration, their attempted repeal of the Affordable Care Act largely failed and it largely failed because people occupied representatives, offices and Congress and put their bodies on the line in order to demonstrate the need for those protections. Other paths were less successful. But even then that is even if you don't ultimately get them to stand down on a particular policy, you are raising the costs of them continuing with it. You should try to make things difficult. Don't just sit back and roll over and let them steamroll the entire country with all of project 2025,

Elise (22:35):

You bring up so many of the measures or the proposals that the Trump administration has pledged to enact and how they're likely illegal or possibly illegal. But what happens when the Justice Department is not kind of its own independent entity as it has been previously.

Leah Litman (22:55):

So I mean, we should expect them to weaponize the law in multiple ways and multiple directions. But even if you think that people in DOJ are basically beyond shame, they have no capacity for shame and you are never going to convince them not to do X, y, or Z or to defend this law or not even then that's where raising the costs of them doing it comes in. So for example, take the issue of birthright citizenship. It is obviously illegal. There's just no getting around it to strip citizenship of people who are born in the United States. That is just the law. And that doesn't guarantee that they aren't going to try to do so or that his Department of Justice isn't going to take the position that they can do. But if that's what happens, everyone right should be writing, saying marching, protesting, calling representatives, saying this shit shouldn't fly. And again, even if they implement the policy in some respects, you have to make it as hard as possible for them to do. So it takes more time, energy, resources, capital so they can't get away with a bunch of other stuff too gum

Elise (24:24):

Up the works.

Doree (24:26):

I think one thing that's become sort of very clear is that what state we live in is very important. I'd love for you to touch on that a little bit.

Leah Litman (24:41):

Yeah. So there are some things that are not going to vary state by state as Trump and the Republican party basically prevent us from addressing the impending climate disaster, it's not going to matter whether you are in a blue state, red state or purple state. This is just going to affect everyone. And the unfortunate reality is you have a Republican party that is floating the possibility of basically denying assistance to certain regions or states based on how they voted in a presidential election. And this is part of why I was suggesting at the outset that this is in some ways unprecedented because of course we kind of know Donald Trump was thinking about doing this and then did this in some respects and other for us. So for example, one of the basis for his impeachment was Ukraine asking him for assistance. And his response is basically, what are you going to do for me?

(25:47):

Are you going to announce a baseless investigation into my political opponent and his family? And so this is now what the Republican party is trying to do with California, getting them to do who knows what in order to receive aid that they are absolutely entitled to. I think this is terrible, right? This is no way to run a rodeo. It's almost the very definition of a corrupt oligarchy. The idea that the government would actually distribute aid and necessities based on political crony and favors. That is not how a democracy that abides by the rule of law works. That is how corrupt autocracies and oligarchy work, and that is what are effectively trying to do. And as far as what to do about this, I mean I do think that one of the singular themes of the second Trump administration is just going to be the sheer amount of corruption and grift. And I think this is an angle that people can care about, should care about, and can be convinced to care about. Because if you think about what people said motivated them in the election, they cared about the price of goods, they cared about feeling like they were being denied economic opportunities that were out of reach for them. And what do you know the Trump administration is doing, right? They are handing out necessities of life to their friends rather than to the people that need them.

(27:37):

And they are making it more difficult for everyone to be able to access the opportunities we should all have. I understand the frustration with looking back on the election and thinking like, okay, well that wasn't the real answer, that glosses over a million different things. But again, getting back to we can't just accept the inevitable and that people aren't persuadable. I do think there are some voters who for whatever reason, inhabited a media ecosystem where they didn't totally know what was happening or

Elise (28:13):

The stakes,

Leah Litman (28:14):

Yeah, or the stakes. They didn't believe that Trump was going to do some of the things he said he was going to do. And I hold out hope that people can be convinced when they see the things that are happening, if they're informed about what is going on, that this actually isn't the world we all want to live in.

Elise (28:35):

Rule of law, the Department of Justice, that is one check on executive power and overreach. And if that kind of fails or laws go unenforced or prosecutors lose all sense of shame as you described. We also have kind of our government system that we learn about in elementary school, the executive branch and the legislative branch. And the judicial branch as you have become such an expert or have long been an expert on, and you have a book coming out I think later this year, lawless, we are talking to you before it comes out several months before it comes out, but this feels like a good moment for you to address some of the themes of it without spoiling too much.

Leah Litman (29:25):

So the themes I think are captured by the subtitle, which is how the Supreme Court runs on conservative grievance, fringe theories and bad vibes. So you kind of led into this by suggesting, well there another part of government that might be able to check the executive and I would say do not count on the Supreme Courts to do so. They have already proved they are unwilling to do so. They enabled Donald Trump, they cleared the way for him to appear on the ballot after states disqualified him for his role in January 6th. Then they dragged out the federal election interference case to ensure he would not face trial before election announced an outlandish opinion granting him broad swaths of immunity, thereby enabling more abuses of office the second time around. I mean, you cannot count on them to do anything. They might rule against the Trump administration in this case or that case occasionally, but they are not going to be the meaningful constraint we all want.

(30:37):

And I think part of the book is convincing people exactly how rotten things have gotten at the Supreme Court so people don't fall back on the idea that the courts or this court are going to save us. And so we can begin to think about how we want to reform the federal court system when we ultimately convince people that things are not how they should be and are supposed to be is I think the silver lining of the book. But basically it kind of runs through different areas of law and shows how the justices are kind of motivated by this spiteful agenda where they're sticking it to different groups who are not part of the modern Republican coalition and how these bodies of law emerged from political strategies and hurt spiteful feelings that form the basis of the modern Republican party.

Elise (31:43):

Oh boy.

Leah Litman (31:44):

I try to make it somewhat fun

Doree (31:45):

And readable though. Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, I was saying to Elise last night, I just love this subtitle. So yeah, I feel like eminently readable. But you touched on reforms of the federal judiciary. I mean, what does that look like? Again, everyone should buy your book when it comes out, but could we just sort of touch on that a little bit? What should we have in mind when we talk about reforms of the federal judiciary?

Leah Litman (32:16):

An enforceable ethics code would be a nice place to start and something that I think most people are already behind. There is no reason these guys are accepting the sheer amount of larges that they are. I mean, Clarence Thomas basically has a side hustle that involves finding billionaire sugar daddies who are his BFFs, who just fly him around the country and let him stay at resorts. Justice Alito got a luxury fishing trip to Alaska. The list goes on. So that would be someplace where I would start is basically preventing these guys from being able to insulate themselves in this false reality created by billionaires where they are just patted on the back for bolstering an oligarchy and reaching deeply unpopular rulings that undermine our constitutional democracy. So that's one bucket. Second would be I think, limiting the powers of the court. And here there are many different ways to do so.

(33:32):

I mean, right now the court has basically completely unfettered authority to pick what cases it decides, when it decides them, how it decides them, what issues it rules on. And that hasn't always been true for American history. And I think that is something that should be revisited, as should their power to frankly not enforce and tell other people they can't enforce certain types of federal laws. They basically nuked the crown jewel of the Civil Rights Movement, the Voting Rights Act pre-clearance system, and that ushered in declining turnout rates in the south, increasing gaps between turnout among black voters and white voters, more mechanisms of voter discrimination. So that's another path that I think we should be considering. And there are many others. There are many tools in this, whatever you want to call it, and I think we seriously need to be talking about a lot of them.

Doree (34:37):

So we're just going to take a short break and we will be right back

Elise (34:49):

When it comes to the lower courts. A couple of years ago, the Biden administration said it was really focused on making sure that Biden would be able to make a bunch of federal judge picks. That did get confirmed just as the first Trump administration was successful at. What's the final tally on that? Was the Biden administration successful in getting a bunch of judges confirmed?

Leah Litman (35:14):

They were very successful. If you look at the numbers of judges who were confirmed, and also I think they were successful in expanding the diversity in the federal courts, professional diversity, demographic diversity, they appointed more public defenders, civil rights lawyers, lawyers who represented consumers and employees and lawyers have different backgrounds. So I think that was all good. I do think it was pretty unevenly distributed. The democratically controlled Senate and the White House did not revisit this policy in this senate that's called the Blue Slip policy. That policy requires home state senators to give their consent for any nominee to the trial court, like the lowest level federal court in the federal system. And what that meant is in states with two Republican senators or a Republican senator, they just wouldn't give their consent. And so the Biden administration wasn't able to confirm a lot of judges to places like Texas, even though they are in dire need of some judicial diversity in those

Elise (36:27):

Places. But is the blue slip idea is that a norm? It's a norm, or is it right? So it's just a norm. So why not just ignore the old precedent?

Leah Litman (36:40):

Because Democrats love tying their hands and following rules when Republicans don't and defending institutions that become indefensible is I think the nicest answer I can give to that question.

Doree (36:57):

Okay, great. Great. This is all great. One thing that I would love for you to clarify for me personally while we have you is while we have you the Convention of States, what is going on with this? Why are the Republicans gung-ho about it and can they really change the Constitution and what do they want to change the constitution for?

Leah Litman (37:34):

Yeah, so this has been a movement kind of long running. They're seeking to call a constitutional convention. Doing so requires a super majority of states to consent. Then yes, if they do so they can then amend the Constitution. Though doing so will again require the approval of enough states to actually get it through the process as to what they want out of it. We actually did an episode that looked into this on strict scrutiny a few years ago with Grace Panetta who had done some research and journalism looking into the movement for a constitutional convention. And no surprise, this is partially the product of groups that were agitating against abortion rights. They are interested in potentially making the constitution or a new constitution adopt the idea of fetal personhood that would require abortion to be banned everywhere. So there are different aspects of the movement, but they are not all of them, but many of them are coming from some of the more fringe elements of the modern Republican coalition.

Doree (38:58):

How much should we worry about this

Leah Litman (39:02):

Of the top five or 10 worries I have right now? This doesn't make the list,

(39:09):

But as ever, I don't want to count it out and say there's nothing to see here, nothing to worry about. Because I think if you had asked people 20 years ago, is the Supreme Court going to overrule Roe? They would say no. If you had asked people 10 years ago, is the court going to grant president sweeping immunity that basically allows them to use the Department of Justice and prosecutorial functions as their own piggy bank? People would say no. If you asked people eight years ago, is participating in a insurrection disqualifying to be president, I think most people would say yes. If you said, could you nominate someone as Secretary of Defense who has been accused of sexual assault, sexual misconduct, and allegedly has a drinking problem and has written things that seem to be open to remaking the army into some white nationalist army Again a few years ago, the answers might sound different than they do now. And so I'm not in the business of telling people nothing to see here, calm down. But I don't think that is immediately on the horizon or on the tippy top of the list of things to worry about. Okay.

Elise (40:24):

What are the top few things that you are worried about for the coming year?

Leah Litman (40:29):

Oh, that is difficult. I think mass deportations and attempts to implement mass deportations including attempts to undermine birthright citizenship are definitely up there. And second is the corruption and grift. And within that I would put, for example, conditioning federal aid on basically pledges of partisan loyalty. I am concerned about civic society, media, educational institutions obeying in advance and basically self-censoring because they're concerned about potential fallout from the Trump administration. Those are some early things I would say that I am worried about. I'm also concerned about what they're going to do at the national federal level to try to effectively institute nationwide abortion bans or jeopardize reproductive healthcare, even in states where it is. And those are just some of the things that just

Doree (41:38):

For

Elise (41:38):

Starters,

Doree (41:39):

Just for starters, for starters

Elise (41:41):

And Leah Lipman, when we listen to this laundry list of potential concerns and real danger for so many swaths of society, it can be very easy for us to just feel helpless. I think that a lot of us and our listeners just didn't even want to look outward and follow news alerts anymore following the election given the promises of what was to come. And so what do you say to folks like us who can just feel like just total overwhelm? Steve Bannon famously talked about flooding the zone with shit, and when the zone is flooded with shit, my response is often to kind of curl up in fetal position. So what do you say to that? What is a more useful response?

Leah Litman (42:34):

I mean, I don't want to neg that and say that's an inappropriate response because I think that's a pretty normal and also healthy response to when things seem just alarmingly overwhelmingly awful. But I think a solution or a way to be involved and try to eventually roll back some of what we are likely to see is to come up with a way of doing so that seems manageable. So at least for me, that has involved basically figuring out what media I can consume that makes following what is happening tolerable. I don't read the kind of headlines on the Times, the post and get alerts there. I read every Alexandra Petra column at the Washington Post, love her. That is a way for me to stay abreast of what is going on and get some gallows humor and smiles in the process. There is a bunch of independent, smaller media that is doing wonderful work that again, I feel like does a better job of curating what to focus on. So ProPublica, I think they're doing fantastic work for legal stuff. I absolutely love Steve Lattice one First Street and Chris Guide's law dork. That's all things where I feel like, oh, I'm learning what I need to know, but I don't want to just stick my head in a toilet and just flush endlessly.

(44:20):

So figuring out basically what the media diet is going to be and then also learning when to take breaks, how to take breaks to keep at it. I did a lot of real time blogging during the first jump administration, and I just know that is not a sustainable thing for me to do right now given other things I have going on. And so I'm not going to do that. That doesn't mean I'm not going to do anything, but it just means figuring out how I can stay engaged without making myself cripsy.

Doree (45:00):

I feel like that's a good motto for the next four years, how to stay engaged without making ourselves crazy. Leah, when we started our conversation and we asked you to put this moment in context, you said, well, there's really not much context for this moment, but I actually feel like the last 30 or so minutes you have given us some really helpful context and sort of action items to carry us through the next four years. So thank you. Where can our listeners find you if they want to follow your work and

Leah Litman (45:36):

Get your

Doree (45:37):

Book later?

Leah Litman (45:39):

Thank you for the book plug. I appreciate it. Lawless is coming out in May. You can pre-order it now@bookshop.org, which is a place that will help support independent local bookstores. There's also strict scrutiny, which is the Supreme Court podcast that I co-host with two other women who are law professors. I like to think we offer a way of staying up to date on what the court is doing that is sufficiently entertaining, where you can take it with a grain of salt and not be too outraged by the end of the episodes. So that's another place. I also am on blue sky, that's my kind of chosen social media right now.

Doree (46:24):

Fantastic. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Despite the sort of serious nature of our conversation, I really enjoyed our conversation, so thank

Leah Litman (46:35):

You. Well, I really

Doree (46:36):

Appreciate you having me.

Elise (46:40):

Okay. Shall we enter the intention zone?

Doree (46:43):

Let's enter the intention zone. What do you have going on this week, Elise?

Elise (46:51):

Just to update last week, my update, my intention was to reflect. Didn't do much. Let me just, that was probably a failed intention. Didn't do much reflection. I did have, as I said at the top of the show, my therapy session, which is always helpful. And I think that was actually quite therapeutic, having this conversation about lost items and our relationships with things and what we would take. So I did some reflection, but I had to pay for that. So that's not the best time. Oh my God, still. Thank you Jonathan. And then this week for this week, I have realized this is going to be gross, but we talk about those things sometimes on the show. My pee is so dark. Oh no,

Doree (47:41):

You're not. I think that you're not drinking

Elise (47:42):

Enough water. Dehydrated. Yeah. Yeah. Soon my pee is going to be the color of Guinness. It needs more or I need more hydration.

Doree (47:54):

Oh man. Okay.

Elise (47:55):

So my intention's going to be hydration.

Doree (47:59):

Have you seen those water bottles that have times on them?

Elise (48:05):

Yes. My daughter has one.

Doree (48:07):

Maybe you should get one of those.

Elise (48:09):

I know. That's what I need. I need somebody to project manage my water consumption.

Doree (48:14):

Yeah, exactly.

Elise (48:18):

Tori, what about you?

Doree (48:19):

Well, last week my intention sort of inspired by Bridget Todd was getting through the day.

Elise (48:26):

Yes, so good.

Doree (48:27):

And I think I have managed to do that evidenced by the fact that I'm here this week. My intention is twofold. One is there's been a lot of hysteria, I would say, over air quality here in Los Angeles. And there seems to be a consensus forming that if you are not in the burn area, the A QI that you see in your weather app is probably pretty accurate. And a lot of the talk of invisible toxins and all this stuff is fearmongering. Again, this does not apply if you are in the burn area or this is if you are far from it and you are not immunocompromised or have respiratory issues. So I am just trying to take that and just sort of in line with what we were talking about at the top of the show of weighing risk versus reward. If I'm healthy, the A QI is green, there's no ash in the air, and I really need to take a walk outside or play tennis or something. I think I'm going to do that.

Elise (49:45):

Yeah. Yeah.

Doree (49:46):

So that's what I have going on. Also this weekend, one of my tennis teams is going to sectionals,

Elise (49:54):

Congrats, rooting for

Doree (49:56):

You. And I'm going to be in the desert all weekend. So that is exciting.

Elise (50:03):

So it's out in Palm Springs area?

Doree (50:05):

Yeah, it's in Rancho Mirage. Cool. So a little past Palm Springs and Henry and Matt are coming with me, so we're going to do So you get a little bit of a vac. Yeah, a little vacay, little family getaway. So I'm excited about that. Alright, well thanks everyone. We appreciate you. And just a reminder that Forever 35 is hosted and produced by me, Doree Shafrir and Elise Hu, and produced and edited by Samee Junio. Sami Reed is our project manager and our network partner is Acast. Thanks everyone for listening.

Elise (50:37):

Until next time.

Doree (50:38):

Bye.

 
Forever 35 Podcast
Next

Mini-Ep 426: Trying for Normalcy