Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes

Litman, a lawyer and cohost of the Strict Scrutiny podcast, debuts with a scathing takedown of the Roberts court. She argues that the court’s conservative justices operate under the belief that “Republicans are being treated unfairly by the increasingly diverse society that no longer shares their views” and craft their decisions accordingly, with an eye toward protecting their “oppressed minority” (in the words of Ginni Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas) rather than attempting to adhere to legal precedent. Litman traces this “no laws, just vibes” attitude through recent controversies and decisions, ranging from Justice Samuel Alito’s flying of an upside down flag in support of the Stop the Steal movement ahead of the January 6 insurrection to the court’s obsessive “hunt for discrimination against religious and social conservatives” supposedly hidden within Covid lockdown measures. Along the way, Litman ingeniously mines the past half century of conservative politics for comedy gold as she builds her case that the movement’s bugbears are now driving the court, from Richard Nixon’s taped Oval Office rant about how ancient Greek civilization was destroyed by gay people to Trump adviser Stephen Miller’s ominous suggestion that “what is happening with Taylor Swift is not organic.” It’s a clear-eyed and alarming view of a court captured by far-right conspiracy theories. (May)